The Role of the Family and the Social Environment

Photo by RODNAE Productions via Pexels

As children grow older they become increasingly independent and autonomous in their media use. According to the academic article How Parents Mediate Children's Media Consumption by Uhls and Robb, the media themselves become the social environment of youth. That is why they can also be called super-peer as media connect children with their peers. Through media children also establish, similarly to adults, so-called parasocial relationships*. That doesn't mean children's media use gets completely out of hand and parents cannot and should not engage.

According to Uhls and Robb teenagers can still very much benefit from parental mediation. In fact, children can draw from this mediation as they age and it can provide them with a useful base as they become independent and autonomous in adolescence. During adolescence, parents should still care about their children's media use and experience. They should be able to engage in a conversation and together with their children find ways how to not let media impact other important aspects of life.

*Parasocial relationships are the ones that we establish with our favorite media characters (both fictional and real), you can learn more about them in our course Media characters/celebrities.

Learn More

Watch the video lesson What's Real Online? Focus on the possible strategies for information verification that are mentioned here. Visit the website tool TinEye that is mentioned in the video and check out how to use it.

To learn more about regulation and how children who use digital media can benefit from it, watch the video The Problem with Parents, Kids, and Social Media. Media regulation is also linked to parental control tools. The goal of parental control is not to prevent children from the consumption of digital media altogether. It should first and foremost help ensure children's safety. Read the article Parental controls to learn about measures that parents can take. Read the basic guidelines called Set up kids' tech devices with safety settings.

Parental control is not the one and only sufficient way to help children stay safe and at the same time get the most out of their media use. Especially with adolescents, parental control is not practiced as much. Parental mediation strategies and open conversation are important as well. Read Parental Mediation Strategies & Media Education Practices to learn types of mediation strategies and formulate recommendations for parents. Focus on parental mediation common for teenage, preadolescent, and adolescent children. Another research-supported document in this module is Parental Role and Tips. In this document, we focus on how to respect the increasing need for autonomy and trust of teenagers and adolescents.

Go to the Family Online Safety Institute website (www.fosi.org) website and pay special attention to the section Tools and Resources for Parents. Choose one of the articles or tool sheets that you could introduce to the parents. We especially recommend covering some of the terms from the Media Literacy flashcard deck. These can help parents to get acquainted with the most important terms and strengthen their own understanding of media literacy and digital skills. The Media Literacy flashcard deck does not differentiate between misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Look at the picture depicting types of information disorder in the article Disinformation and Manipulation to understand the difference.

Exercise

Visit the Parental Controls website on internetmatters.org. At the bottom of the page, you can find a dropdown menu for various types of media platforms. The goal is for you to choose from the menu listing “Smartphones and other devices” some of the devices. Read about the possible ways of parental control implementation and safety settings on the device that you chose.

Answer these questions for yourself:

What parental control settings options did you not know about?
Do you or someone you know have any experience with safety settings? What are they?
How would you talk to children about safety settings and parental control?

After watching the video What's Real Online? try using printscreen to verify some of the images used in this video via the website TinEye.

What you learn in this course

State which elements belong to media education and name them.
Reproduce and identify forms of guidance and support in media use and media consumption.
On the basis of the knowledge acquired in Modules 1 and 2 on media use and media perception, allocate guidance and support services for young people between 12 and 18 years of age.
Name methods with which media (and their use) by young people of this age group can be explored.
Define media use times for the age group and name and correctly allocate advantages and disadvantages.
Define general rules in the family and guide parents to translate and formulate rules for their own family.

Get ready: Tips for MediaParent consultants

Parental control can help provide safety for children when they use media and digital technologies independently. It can also help the parents become more aware of what online activities their children could and could not engage in. However, it is important to stress that parental control is not a quick fix that can or should substitute for media education. Parents of older teenagers and adolescents might find that they do not want to employ parental controls as they are restrictive which could undermine the mutual trust and autonomy that they want to grant their children. Each parent has a different parenting style and relationship with their children. They should understand that parental control is by no means the only way to care for their child's internet safety, media literacy, and well-being in general. Other important aspects are showing interest, engaging in conversation, and staying informed. In the next module Implement Media Education at Home, you can learn how parents can open up and frame conversations with their children on the topic of media.