Parental mediation and problematic media use among U.S. children with disabilities and their non-disabled siblings during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

During the COVID-19 pandemic, caregivers of disabled children have faced adverse conditions complicating their media use management (i.e., parental mediation). Disabled children and non-disabled children in a household may also have distinct cognitive, emotional, and physical needs requiring different parental mediation strategies. In this exploratory study, we surveyed U.S. parents (N = 123) with a disabled and non-disabled child between the ages of 5 and 13 to explore child differences in average hours spent watching media and playing games, problematic media use, and parental mediation during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic (Spring 2020–Spring 2021). Results suggest higher problematic media use for children with disabilities compared to their siblings without disabilities during the pandemic, with rates of problematic use primarily increasing or staying the same for both, but significantly more parental mediation of children without disabilities compared to those with disabilities. In the wake of the pandemic and spikes in children’s media use, screen time advice from health providers to households with both disabled and non-disabled children requires unique considerations to support healthy child media use.

IMPACT SUMMARY

Prior State of Knowledge: Media have offered young people important opportunities for learning, entertainment, and social connection during the COVID-19 pandemic, but parents also have concerns about overuse and negative effects.

Novel Contributions: We surveyed parents of school-age siblings with and without disabilities to compare media use patterns, problematic media use, and parental mediation. We found higher rates of problematic media use among disabled children, but more parental mediation of non-disabled children.

Practical Implications: Practitioners who provide screen media guidance to households with both disabled and non-disabled children should consider these families’ unique considerations and circumstances, including how siblings mutually influence one another’s media use, as well as their parents’ overall caregiving practices.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• disability
• pandemic
• parental mediation
• problematic media use
• siblings

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2023.2180045.

Notes

1. We use “disabled/non-disabled children” and “children with/without disabilities” interchangeably in this paper, as different disability communities have different disability language preferences (e.g., autistic person, individual with cerebral palsy).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meryl Alper

Meryl Alper, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, where she studies the social and cultural implications of communication technologies. She is the author of three books on disability, digital media, and youth technology use, including the forthcoming Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023).

Jennifer Manganello

Jennifer Manganello, PhD, MPH is a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is a health communication scholar who uses theories, concepts, and methods from the fields of public health and communication. Her research focuses on health literacy as well as the effects of media on attitudes, behaviors, and policies that put young people at risk for negative health outcomes.

Kimberly F. Colvin

Kimberly Colvin, EdD is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and Methodology at the University at Albany, SUNY. Her research focuses on the use of item response theory in the development and analysis of educational and psychological instruments.