An effort to understand parents’ media mediation roles and early childhood children's digital game addiction tendency: A descriptive correlational survey study

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether parents' media mediation roles are related to their early childhood children's digital game addiction tendencies. In addition, it examines whether these variables are related to the child's and parent's digital device usage habits and whether they differ according to various sociodemographic variables and digital device usage habits. In this context, we collected data from 433 parents (mother = 336, father = 97) with children aged 3–6. We analyzed the data using correlation analysis, one-way ANOVA, and t-test. Active-supportive, restrictive-supportive, active-limiting, restrictive-limiting, and active-interpreter roles of parents were negatively related to children's digital game addiction tendencies. In addition, parents' and children's digital device screen time was negatively associated with parents' media mediation roles and positively with children's digital game addiction tendencies. Mothers found their children more likely to have digital game addiction than fathers. Children of parents who play digital games have higher digital game addiction than those of parents who do not play, male children than female, children who have their own digital devices than those who do not, and children who only watch YouTube videos than those who only watch television channels for kids. Finally, we observed that mothers are more active in media mediation roles than fathers and that parents behave more restrictive toward their daughters.