“We Were Beaten Down”: Parents' Concerns about Children's Digital Media Use

Abstract

Parents' concerns about children's digital media use were investigated using data from semi‐structured interviews with 17 parents of children ages five to 11 at three branches of a U.S. urban public library system. Data were analyzed using collaborative inductive thematic analysis and analyzed with the lens of culturally‐constructed anxieties about new media. The most common concerns included worries about exposure to inappropriate content, worries about digital media taking up time that children would otherwise spend engaging in more meaningful activities, concerns about safety and privacy, and worries about negative effects on children's behaviors, attitudes, and social skills. Further analysis showed parents' deeper concern for children's healthy development to underlie these narrower concerns. The authors conclude with the recommendation to shift the framing of discourse around parenting with digital media from risk protection to digital media education. Such a shift could raise awareness that framing children and digital media only in terms of risks is overly simplistic, and it could help parents come to understand that children's digital media use is not just risky but also an opportunity for children to derive educational and social benefits, and learn how to operate in a digital media‐dominated information ecosystem.