James The experiences of Irish parents in the mediation of their children’s use of internet connected devices
James The experiences of Irish parents in the mediation of their children’s use of internet connected devices

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this research was to explore the parental experience in the mediation of children’s use of ICDs in Ireland. The research used a qualitative methodology and semistructured interviews were used as a means to gather data from participants. There were five volunteering participating parents, who were recruited through social media forum advertisements. All of the participants had children between the ages of 9 and 16years of age. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the interview data and five main themes were identified as follows: Parental mediation (parental control and experience), knowledge of interests, risk, trust and parental anxiety. The results imply support for prior research in the area of parenting and parental mediation of technology. A number of conclusions were reached including, that the definitional understanding of parental mediation of ICDs used in prior research did not capture the dynamic parental experience of anxiety and trust. Definitional understanding of parental mediation of ICDs could be expanded to recognise that in addition to parental strategies, parents also utilise dynamic tactics that may be covert or overt in nature which may be triggered from being passive to active by child behaviour. Additionally, parental experiences of mediation were found to differ based on location (urban or rural) and that the range of risks identified by Livingston and Haddon1 (content risk, contact risk, conduct risk and violation of privacy) should be extended to include health risks, social risks, the risk of parental anxiety and the risk of variation in parental mediation standards. The results and conclusions provide additional knowledge to psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists, which may be of value to the therapeutic process.

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