Styles of Digital Parental Mediation: A Multi-Group Person-Centered Approach

Abstract

Parental mediation of digital technology is influential within the dynamic and bidirectional process of digital socialization in which contemporary parents and children engage. Utilizing a person-centered approach and multidimensional measure of digital parental mediation strategies, four latent profiles of digital parental mediation styles were identified: one “high” and one “average” digital meditation style, and two “low” involvement styles, demarcated by parents’ emphasis on mediation by modeling. These profiles were generalizable across mothers and fathers, and differentially associated with relevant covariates (including parent income and race, child age, parent and child screen time, and parents’ technology-related confidence and worry). This study demonstrates the heterogeneity of digital parental mediation styles among a representative sample of parents in the United States.