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Teenagers’ Internet Use and Family Rules: A Research Note
Author(s) -
Wang Rong,
Bianchi Suzanne M.,
Raley Sara B.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00214.x
Subject(s) - the internet , parental monitoring , psychology , developmental psychology , multivariate analysis , parental supervision , social psychology , medicine , computer science , world wide web
The Internet poses challenges to parents who want their children to take advantage of online resources but also want to protect their children from questionable content. Using data from 749 dyads of American parents and their teenage children with Internet access, this study finds that the majority of parents report regulating their teenage children's Internet use, but parents report more monitoring (61%) than teens report (38%). Multivariate regression analyses indicate fathers, younger parents, parents who use the Internet with their children, and parents with younger teens engage in a higher level of parental monitoring. This study provides a first look at parental monitoring of children's Internet use and points to the need to study family rules from both parents’ and children's perspectives.