Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
Family Social Science
Non Technical Summary
Information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the ways in which we develop and maintain relationships with others. Most of the existing research has focused on young people who are digital "natives," considering how youth are using technology, the role of technology in peer relationships, and the ways in which parents monitor youth technology use. As we see a new generation of parents and adults who are also digital natives, it is essential we explore online behavior in the context of family systems. Technologies provide innovative ways for families to connect and support one another when they are geographically separated. Unfortunately, there is limited data on family use of technologies for communication and for support of family relationships. In a broad sense this project is focused on gaining a better understanding of the ways in which, and the reasons that families use technology, and how that changes over time.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
Undoubtedly, the explosion of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the last 25 years has stimulated interest in the ways that innovations are being used by individuals and groups. ICT scholars claim that the presence of new media is changing the way that society learns and interacts (e.g., Shirkey, 2008), and how individuals expect to share, receive and create information. Unfortunately, we know little about where families as users of new media fit into this picture. Primarily, consideration of families and the Internet is relegated to parents' roles as monitors of their children's safety online (Rushkoff & Dretzin, 2010).Existing published literature on families' online behavior is limited in scope. The Pew Internet and American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org) as well as the work of Dworkin and colleagues (e.g., Doty & Dworkin, 2013; Doty, Dworkin, & Connell, 2012; Walker, Dworkin, & Connell, 2011) looks broadly at the range of parents' behaviors and types of media used. Other studies focus on use of a specific Internet site (e.g., Na & Chia, 2009), for a specific purpose (e.g., health information), or for a specific benefit (e.g., social support). There are two existing reviews of literature on parent use of online technology. The first was published by Daneback and Plantin (2008). Their review focused on parents' Internet use, rather than on the range of social media, software, digital media hardware and other technologies that parents might use. Dworkin, Connell, and Doty (2013) completed a more recent literature review.The purpose of this literature review was to compile and analyze the research that has been conducted on parents' use of the Internet and determine what we know about how parents use the Internet in everyday life. This yielded 27 studies that were summarized and then organized by content. Three main themes emerged: what parents are doing online, social support online, and the digital divide. This literature review revealed that parents go online to search for parenting information and social support and generally report satisfaction with the resources they find on the Internet. Parents still express hesitation in trusting various online resources, though, and desire greater education in Internet searching and deciphering the credibility of online information. In addition, this review also exposes gaps in current research, provides direction for future research, and has implications for how to effectively reach parents using the Internet. (Dworkin et al., 2013). Since this time, there has been an explosion in research on technology use, but still very little on family relationships in particular.In a more recent review, 19 international articles addressing online social support for parents were critically examined; these studies provide evidence that parents around the world perceive emotional and informational support online. These studies highlight the benefits of the online environment to parents, including convenience and anonymity, although some drawbacks were also noted such as a lack of credibility. Social support theories have been extended to the online environment; however, the understanding of parents' online social network structure is limited. Social support implies a positive effect on well-being, and future studies are needed to further explore this. Overall, social capital theory, and stress and coping perspectives hold promise for future studies to extend descriptive work. Although representative samples and sound measurement are needed, the articles in this review lay a descriptive foundation to further study this topic (Doty & Dworkin, 2014).Despite the innovative ways in which this body of work has extended the literature to parents, there is still much to be learned about families' use of the Internet, and the role of technologies in supporting the diversity of family relationships. Designed to fill this existing gap in the literature, the next phase in my larger program of study is being proposed here. While it is clear that parents and families are active users of the Internet and online tools, we know little about how these tools are being used for family interaction, and about the ways in which they support or hinder family relationships. Building on the work of Dworkin, Rudi, and Hessel (2018), and the contention that a life course theory and a network approach are essential to understanding the multiple roles of technology in family relationships, the proposed project is both longitudinal, designed to capture multiple life transitions, and defines family broadly, to include parents, children, as well as extended family members. Longitudinal data is essential to test the proposed model of Dworkin et al. (2018) and explore how technology use changes with developmental transitions and the density of one's personal network.Objective 1. Using data collected from parents and adolescents during fall 2019, explore similarities and differences in how parents and adolescents perceive family relationships and family communication.Objective 2. Collect a second wave of data from the 403 families who responded to the wave 1 survey.Objective 3. Examine changes in family communication, family relationships, and parental monitoring of adolescent technology use between wave 1 and wave 2.Objective 4. Collect a third wave of data from the 403 families who responded to the wave 1 survey.Objective 5. To begin to examine changes in family communication, family relationships, and parental monitoring of adolescent technology use between waves 1, 2, and 3. Specifically, the similarities and differences in how parents and adolescents perceive family relationships and family communication over time will be examined.Objective 6. Disseminate findings from this study to families and professionals who work with families to improve parent education and prevention efforts.
Project Methods
The methods for the current study will be focused on data analysis (objectives 1, 3, and 5), data collection (objectives 2 and 4), and dissemination (objective 6).Objective 1. Using data recently collected from parents and adolescents during fall 2019, explore similarities and differences in how parents and adolescents perceive family relationships and family communication.Utilizing the first wave of data just collected from parents and adolescents, analyses will be conducted to identify similarities and differences in parents' and adolescents' perceptions of the parent-child relationship, parent-child communication, and parental monitoring of adolescent behavior in general and specific to online behavior. As preliminary analyses are conducted, a more complete data analysis plan will be developed.Participants were parent-child dyads living in the United States (n = 403 dyads). Parent participants (M age = 43.37; SD = 8.78; r = 26-76 years) were primarily White (67.6%), female (62.0%), married or living with a partner (65.5%), employed (70.0%), with 15.7% self-employed. Approximately half (52.3%) of the participants had attained at least a bachelor's, associate's, or technical school degree. Annual income approximated a normal distribution with nearly one-quarter (23.8%) of parents reporting earnings from $50,000 to $75,000; thirteen percent reported earning less than $25,000 and 16.4% reported earning $100,000 or more per year. Geographic area was distributed among rural (28.9%), suburban (31.5%), and urban (39.6%) households. Child participants (M age = 15.32; SD = 1.47; r = 13-18 years) were primarily White (65.7%), male (50.6%), living full-time with the parent that sent them the survey (93.3%), and enrolled in high school (79.4%). Most child participants were already enrolled in college (2.7%) or intended to enroll in college full- (59.1%) or part-time (7.9%) upon high school graduation.Given the mixed research findings on demographic differences in online behavior, it is unclear how these similarities and differences may vary by demographics. Analyses will also explore whether these patterns differ by race and ethnicity, age, gender, and socioeconomic status. In addition, analyses will consider the diversity of family relationships (e.g., sibling relationships, grandparent-grandchild relationships), and the complexity of living arrangements (e.g., living together vs. apart but nearby vs. apart and far away).Objective 2. Collect a second wave of data from the 403 families who responded to the wave 1 survey.During the first wave of data collection, participants were asked if they could be contacted again to complete a second survey; nearly all participants agreed. We will use these participant-provided email addresses to send a link to an online survey to those parents and adolescents who agreed to be contacted again.During year 1, a second wave of data will be collected online from these same families with adolescents. The second wave of data will be collected around September 2020, approximately one year after the first wave of data were collected. Both parents and adolescents will receive an email including some preliminary findings from the first wave of data collection (to share some of what we have already learned from them), and an invitation with a link to complete the second online survey. The survey will include questions about the parent-child relationship, frequency of parent-child communication using different forms of communication, well-being, parental monitoring of adolescent technology use, as well as how COVID-19 is impacting family relationships and family use of technology for communication. For completing the survey, both parents and adolescents will receive gift cards. I hope to be able to provide a $10 gift card to each participant. Analyses from the first wave of data will be utilized to finalize the follow up survey (wave 2).Objective 3. Examine changes in family communication, family relationships, and parental monitoring of adolescent technology use between wave 1 and wave 2.A series of longitudinal analyses will be conducted to explore stability and change in family communication, family relationships, use of technology, and parental monitoring of adolescent technology use. It is hypothesized that as adolescents get older, they will take more ownership for their relationships and communication and thus there will be changes in both parent and adolescent behaviors over time. In fact, it is hypothesized that changes will emerge even over the course of just one year.Objective 4. Collect a third wave of data from the 403 families who responded to the wave 1 survey.Using the same procedure as objective 2, a follow up survey with those parents and adolescents who responded to the initial survey, will be administered. A plan for data collection will be finalized after wave 2 data are collected and analyzed. The third wave of data will be collected around September 2021, approximately two years after the first wave of data were collected.Objective 5. Begin to examine changes in family communication, family relationships, and parental monitoring of adolescent technology use between waves 1, 2, and 3. Specifically, the similarities and differences in how parents and adolescents perceive family relationships and family communication over time will be examined.Based on findings from objectives 1 and 3, a plan for longitudinal data analyses will be developed.Objective 6. Disseminate findings from this study to families and professionals who work with families to improve parent education and prevention efforts.