Family characteristics and intergenerational conflicts over the Internet

Abstract

The rapid expansion of computer use and Internet connection has the potential to change patterns of family interaction, with conflicts arising over adolescents' autonomy, parental authority and control of the computer. This study applied a conceptual framework derived from family development and human ecology theory to investigate family characteristics related to the likelihood of such conflicts. A secondary analysis was conducted of a special survey of 754 children aged 12 to 17 who used the Internet, and of their parents, performed by Pew Internet and the American Life project. Adolescent–parent conflicts over Internet use proved strongly related to the perception that the adolescent was a computer expert. Families in which adolescents were considered experts in new technologies were more likely to experience conflicts. Parents' attempt to reduce adolescent autonomy by regulating the time of Internet use increased the likelihood of family arguments over the Internet. Intergenerational conflicts over the Internet were higher in families in which parents expressed concern over the potentially negative consequences of Internet use. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• Youth
• technology adoption
• family
• Internet
• Internet effects

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Raine Lee, Amanda Lenhart and the Pew Internet and American Life Project for data access and useful comments on the research project.

Notes

1. Family developmental theory posits that families go through a developmental process that involves significant change and adaptation on the part of the family at each stage of development. This approach emphasizes stages of family development such as mate selection, marriage, school-age children, adolescents, post-parenting and retirement. The assumption underlying these stages is that families at distinct stages of development will be faced with differing issues related to the family's use of the computer.

2. The family literature as cited in the paper has long recognized that families, as socialization agents, have rules that regulate children's and adolescents' behaviour in different aspects of their lives, including moral, prudential and friendship issues. In that sense, rules that regulate the use of phones, TV and Internet are part of the socialization function of the family. Yet families differ in the extent that they have rules in different aspects. Rules that regulate the amount of time that children can watch TV have proved to be related mainly to the extent of parental awareness of some of TV's negative effects (e.g. obesity, pornographic content and exposure to violence) (for a review see Gentile & Walsh 2002). In the case of the Internet, the source of rules is the same, adding the need for equity in the distribution of a scarce resource (computer time) that might be needed by other children and the parents in the household (see Holloway & Valentine 2002).

3. Previous studies have shown that there is a lack of agreement between parents and adolescents on the existence of rules that regulate household media consumption (see Turow & Nir for US results and Livingstone & Bober for UK results). The percentage of parents reporting the existence of rules is much larger than the percentage of their children reporting rules. In this study we chose to use the measure derived from the parental questionnaire, as we believe that it is the violation of parental rules, as parents understand them, that creates conflict.

4. Parents and adolescents were asked separately who the expert on Internet matters was. The preliminary analysis showed a high measure of agreement: 66.3% of the parents and 64.3% of the adolescents said it was the adolescent. For that reason we chose to use the item from the adolescents' questionnaire; however, the item from the parents' questionnaire gave identical results.