The role of socialization agents in adolescents’ responses to app-based mobile advertising

Abstract

This study examines how parents, peers, and media use affect adolescents’ attitudinal and behavioral responses to app-based mobile advertising. A survey conducted with 603 smartphone users aged between 12 and 19 in Singapore suggests that parental factors, particularly control-based restrictive parental mediation, are more influential on younger adolescents than older ones. Findings also demonstrate that adolescents’ susceptibility to normative peer influence makes them less critical about app-based mobile advertising, regardless of their age. Regarding the role of media use, adolescents’ responses to app-based mobile advertising are more a function of perceived smartphone competency than the amount of time spent on smartphones.

Keywords:

• Adolescents
• mobile advertising
• parental mediation
• peer influence
• consumer socialization

Disclousre statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Wonsun Shin (PhD, University of Minnesota) is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Areas of research include youth and digital media, marketing communications, consumer socialization, and parental mediation. Her work has been published in the International Journal of Advertising, New Media and Society, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Communication Research and elsewhere.

May O. Lwin (PhD, National University of Singapore) is a Professor at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She has conducted extensive research on Singaporean children and adolescents’ health behaviors, investigating parental mediation, school environments and media messaging influences on health attitudes, intentions and behaviors. She has received the Ogilvy Foundation Award, the Fulbright ASEAN Scholar Award, and the 2019 Outstanding Applied Researcher Award from the International Communication Association (ICA).

Andrew Z H Yee (PhD, Nanyang Technological University) is currently SUTD Faculty Fellow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and is a recipient of the Faculty Early Career Award at SUTD. His research focuses broadly on understanding how social and technological environments shape the health and well-being of youths.

Kalya M. Kee (BA (Hons), Yale-NUS College) is a Masters student and research assistant at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (NUS). Her research looks at psychology and health behaviors in various populations.

Notes

1 Secondary schools consist of four levels – from age 12 in secondary one to age 17 in secondary five – while polytechnics consists of three levels – from age 16 in year one to age 19 in year three.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Ministry of Education (Singapore) under its Tier 1 Funding Scheme. The funder had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article.