To ensure their children's safety online, parents can utilize number of strategies, including active and restrictive parental mediation. Active mediation encompasses parents discussing and advising ...children about safe usage of the internet, whereas restrictive mediation means limiting children's internet usage. Both strategies aim to affect children's online behavior, especially to minimize online risks. Using a sample of 1031 adolescents aged 11-17 (54% females) and structural equation modeling, we focused on the active and restrictive parental mediation of online interactions and their connections to adolescents' potentially risky online contacts with new people. In addition, we considered the indirect effect of parental mediation on adolescents' behavior through adolescents' risk perception. In this way, we captured one of the potential explanatory mechanisms through which the parental mediation's effect occurs. The results showed that restrictive mediation decreased contacts with new people by increasing adolescents' risk perception of this activity. In contrast, active mediation had neither a direct nor indirect effect on adolescents' online contacts. The results enrich the theory of parental mediation by showing that risk perception is an important factor to consider when researchers examine the effects of parental mediation on children's potentially risky online behavior.
Parental knowledge of children's whereabouts is an important aspect of parenting that is associated to positive outcomes (e.g., less problem behaviors). In the current digital world, knowledge of ...children's online activities gains importance. Yet, little is known about its accuracy and associations to parental mediation, i.e., parenting strategies specifically targeted at children's usage of digital technologies, and other parenting factors. This study investigated parents' objective knowledge (comparisons of children's and parents' reports) and perceived knowledge (parents' subjective feelings) of online risky activities in a sample of 2946 parent-child dyads (67.5% mothers, adolescents' age 11–16, 50.2% males) representative of Czech households with children. The level of parental knowledge varied across online activities. Parents were well informed about adolescents' less risky and more frequent activities, e.g., gaming, but often underestimated the occurrence of more risky and potentially more harmful experiences, e.g., cyberhate victimization. Parental support and active mediation were associated with higher perceived, and objective knowledge, whereas restrictive mediation and the child's demographics were not related to either. Technical mediation and monitoring were associated with higher perceived knowledge but technical mediation was connected with lower objective knowledge and monitoring had no relation to it, suggesting that these strategies can provide a false sense of security rather than keeping parents informed about children's online experiences. The results underscore the importance of a positive family environment and highlight the differences between perceived and objective parental knowledge.
•Parents were more aware of the less risky online activities of their children.•Parental support and active mediation were connected to higher both perceived and objective parental knowledge.•Technical mediation and monitoring were related to higher perceived knowledge but lower objective parental knowledge.•Restrictive mediation did not relate to neither perceived nor objective parental knowledge.•There was a very low association between perceived and objective knowledge.
Adolescents commonly make new social connections online that sometimes result in face-to-face meetings. Despite potential benefits, risk-focused discourse dominates public debates and shapes ...information shared by sources important for adolescents—news media, preventive programs, peers, parents, and teachers. Our study examines how information about face-to-face meetings from these sources relates to adolescents’ risk perception and engagement in such meetings. Using a sample of 707 Czech adolescents (aged 11–16 years, 46% male), we analyzed these effects for male and female adolescents to reflect the gendered nature of the risk-focused discourse. Male adolescents’ risk perception was not affected by information from any source. Female adolescents’ risk perception was negatively affected by information peers with prior experience with face-to-face meetings but not by other information sources. Female adolescents also perceived face-to-face meetings as riskier in general. We discuss gender differences and the limited impact of information sources on risk perception and provide practical recommendations.
•Adolescents often interact with previously unknown people from the internet.•Current study uses data from five European countries from EU Kids Online IV project.•Offline meetings and online ...communication are predicted by different factors.•Preventative efforts should target adolescents struggling with emotional symptoms.
A considerable amount of adolescents’ interpersonal communication takes place online. Adolescents use the internet to interact with friends and family, but also with people who were previously unknown to them. This study focuses on two types of interactions with unknown people from the internet: online communication and offline face-to-face meetings. We used theoretical frameworks of adolescent developmental tasks and risk-taking behavior to identify the psychological and social factors that relate to the likelihood that adolescents will interact with unknown people. We further examined the differences between the two types of interactions. Using a sample 6647 adolescents, aged 11–16 (50.4% girls), from five European countries included in the EU Kids Online IV project, we examined the association of selected factors for both types of interactions.
Our results support only some of our developmentally framed hypotheses – specifically, though age predicted both types of interactions, the quality of family relationships only predicted face-to-face meetings, and we found no association between the social support of friends and either type of interaction. In line with our risk-taking-framed hypotheses, sensation seeking, and emotional symptoms predicted both types of interactions; however, self-efficacy predicted only face-to-face meetings.
Supporting our reasoning that online communications and face-to-face meeting are distinct behaviors, self-efficacy and the quality of family relationships predicted only face-to-face meetings, while disclosure in online communication only predicted online communication. Thus, future research and preventive efforts should be mindful of the differences and not conflate these behaviors. We also recommend preventive efforts for adolescents with elevated emotional symptoms who spend a lot of time online.
Research on adolescents’ sexual exposure has mostly focused on negcative outcomes using a risk-based lens, and there is little work on the factors that may predict exposure, as well as youths’ ...emotional responses to sexual content. Using a cross-national sample, the present study examined the associations of individual (sensation seeking and emotional problems) and social characteristics (the quality of family environment, including active and restrictive parental mediation) with adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit materials and their feelings after exposure. The survey included 8,820 11- to 16-year-olds (M
age
= 13.36 years, SD = 1.62, 48.0% male) from nine European countries (Czech Republic, Finland, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland). The results revealed that although there were differences in the prevalence of youths’ sexual exposure by country, there were also similarities in the characteristics underlying exposure and subsequent feelings across different country contexts. No significant relationship was found between active parental mediation and exposure in most countries, and the findings regarding restrictive parental mediation were mixed. Although the majority of the participants reported neutral feelings, there were gender differences in feeling happy and upset after exposure. Overall, the results suggest that exposure may not be as distressing to youth as prevalent risk-focused narratives have suggested.
Research of face-to-face meetings between adolescents and people met online stands on untested assumptions that these meetings are uniform, and adolescents attend them to expand their social circle. ...It is also unclear what makes such meetings pleasant or unpleasant. This study examined meetings of 611 Czech adolescents (age 11–16,
M
age
= 14.04,
SD
= 1.67, 47.1% female). Face-to-face meetings attended with friendly, romantic, or instrumental motives differed from each other, emphasizing the need to investigate them separately. Pleasantness of meetings is closely related to disconfirmation of adolescents’ expectations. Unmet expectations related to unpleasant meetings, exceeded expectations to pleasant ones. While present findings uphold existing theories (e.g., social compensation), they also call for new theoretical perspectives for this common adolescents’ activity.
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