From controlling to connecting: The role of parents in adolescents' problematic social media use

One of the major challenges parents face today is managing the pervasiveness of social media in adolescents’ life. Yet, there is little empirical insight into how parents can effectively regulate their adolescents’ social media use to prevent or reduce problematic, addictive-like usage. Therefore, this dissertation aimed to deepen our understanding of the role of parents in the development of adolescents’ problematic social media use. It presents five empirical studies involving Dutch adolescents aged 8-18 years and their parents, addressing three key research objectives: (1) comparing self- and parent-reports of adolescents’ problematic social media use, (2) identifying key family factors that serve as important potential risk and protective factors for adolescents’ problematic social media use, and (3) investigating the effects of parental restrictive mediation (i.e. limiting internet use) on adolescents’ problematic social media use in greater detail using longitudinal data. First, findings revealed notable discrepancies between self- and parent-reports of adolescents’ problematic social media use using the Social Media Disorder scale. Less observable symptoms tended to go unreported by parents. Furthermore, parent-reports showed no associations with mental wellbeing indicators of adolescents. Therefore, parents’ role in assessing adolescents’ problematic social media use should be approached with caution. Second, adolescents who perceived a more positive parenting style were at lower risk of at-risk/problematic social media use, regardless of the internet-specific parenting they received or the intensity of their parents’ media use. Besides, limiting adolescents’ internet use seemed more effective when they perceived their parents as being warm and autonomy-supporting. Thus, a positive parenting style seems to play an important role in adolescents’ problematic social media use. Third, adolescents’ age moderated the effect of parental internet-specific rules on the onset of at-risk/problematic social media use. Adolescents younger than 12.3 years were less likely to develop at-risk/problematic social media use during the course of the study when they reported more strict parental rules regarding internet use at the start of the study. However, for adolescents older than 15.7 years we found the opposite effect. These findings indicate that parents should introduce internet-specific rules at an early stage and gradually loosen these rules as adolescents grow older. These findings provide important preliminary implications for researchers, health care professionals, parents and the government. Yet, replications in more diverse samples and further research into e.g., individual differences are needed to further enhance the complex relations between parenting and adolescents’ problematic social media use.