Understanding Parents’ Concerns with Smart Device Usage in the Home

Abstract

Several studies have been conducted to determine parenting strategies in the age of digital technology. However, we are not aware of any qualitative research regarding parents’ safety and privacy concerns about their children’s use of smart devices in the home. Given the rise in use of smart devices within the home in general, and among children in particular, we wanted to explore the privacy and safety concerns that parents have about their children’s device use, their experiences using devices with their children, children’s independent use, and restrictions parents place on device use. In this paper, we present findings from an exploratory study of 29 participants through three focus groups and 14 semi-structured interviews. Our study revealed that encouraging device usage may help build familial relationships and foster open communication between parents and children. We also discovered that parents feel it is their responsibility to keep their children from harm when they use smart devices, and that parents do not trust applications, devices, smart device manufacturers or Internet providers to do so. Our findings can help researchers better understand the different device usage scenarios, parents’ concerns about their kids’ device use, and parent-child relationships, which will help them design better tools that encourage parents and children to work together to develop device usage rules and better safety and privacy practices.