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Category: Project

Description: This cross-sectional study aims to investigate parents’ concerns about their child’s (age 0-18) screen usage, and in this intends to identify psychological and social predictors in relations to this. We examine this both as a general phenomenon in parents, and as a comparison across the age groups 0-5 years, 6-11 years and 12-17 years. Data is collected from a projected 850 parents to children 0-18 years, who were recruited through a national survey service (Epinion) evenly distributed in the three age groups. However, the final sample ended at N=634 due to limits in the survey bureau’s database. As predictors for parental concern about screen usage we investigate parents’ educational level, tendency to maximizing (or optimizing) and belief in popular neuromyths. As an additional predictor, we examine parents’ perception of play, and the extent to which parents value different forms of play in their child’s life. We predict that parents who consider play valuable will show higher levels of concern about screen usage. Finally, based on previous studies in the field, we look at parents’ educational level as a mediator for maximizing, belief in neuromyths and concern about their child’s screen usage. Parental concern is self-reported at face value through direct questions related to screen time in general, and to specific screen media. Further, a factor analysis will be conducted in order to identify specific stratas of concern. Based on a content analysis of the discourse surrounding screen time in national media in 2017-2018, parents are asked to rate their concern about 33 commonly voiced beliefs about outcomes of screen usage which will then be subjected to principal component analysis. The data collection therefore has two strains to be reported as separate studies: One about predictors for general parental concern about children’s screen usage and one mapping potential clusters of concerns about the concrete outcomes of screen usage.