SURVEYING PARENTAL MEDIATION AND DIGITAL LITERACY. WERE PARENTS READY DURING COVID-19?

Abstract

The pandemic initiated an extensive and sudden digital transformation in the society. It forced parents and children to take a digital surge in their lives. The aim of our survey is to explore to what extend children's online behavior has changed during the pandemic, to study whether demographic factors and digital literacy of parents, are associated with the changes observed, and lastly to explore to what extend parents are familiar with age and content classification systems online, which will allow them to make informed decisions about media content consumed by their children. The study reveals that a significant percentage of parents (29.8%) report changes in the online habits of their children. Furthermore, our research affirms that digital literacy of parents is the key to overcome potential online risks of children, especially during the pandemic. Notably, the age group 9-12 is the age group, which shows the biggest percentage of parents noticing changes in their child's online habits. Finally, it is revealed that parents were unprepared to follow this fast transformation pace, and only a low percentages of them appears to be familiar with age (49.8%) and content classification systems (27.9%) online.