Children as Audience & Consumer of Interactive Mobile Games: Decoding the Parent’s Perspective

Abstract

A study examining parental perspectives on their children's use of mobile games for both entertainment and education revealed multifaceted outcomes. The investigation focused on three age groups: toddlers (1-3 years), pre-schoolers (3-5 years), and school-age children (5-17 years). Analyzing 266 responses through PCA, Multiple linear regression, and Oneway ANOVA, the research found that parents recognize a strong entertainment value in these games but also acknowledge their educational benefits. However, perceptions of the educational utility vary with the child's developmental stage.The most pressing concern highlighted by parents is the predominance of gaming in children's daily routines, with a mean score indicating it as a significant challenge. From an analytical standpoint, when considering educational purposes as an outcome variable, cognitive development surprisingly showed a negative correlation while other factors positively influenced this aspect; this model accounted for 62.9% of variance observed. In contrast, only 38.8% of variance was explained for entertainment purposes where academic performance did not show any notable effect.In essence, while mobile games are seen to offer both fun and learning opportunities for children across different ages, there is caution regarding their overuse and varying impacts on cognitive growth depending on age-related expectations from such interactive platforms.