Parents, Teens, and Digital Monitoring

Technology is available to everyone, it would seem.  And as a current teacher, it seems like technology is at the forefront of every curriculum writing session, lesson plan, and instructional assignment.  But what implications does this have with parents? Does the average educator stop to think how teens interact and behave online? What type of implications does constant online interaction have with teens and their parents, and how do parents navigate this?

Monica Anderson's, "Parents, Teens, and Digital Monitoring" surveyed a group of parents and teens with ages ranging between 13 - 17 years of age.  The survey sampled various income groups and ethnicities. And the findings are very enlightening.

For the most part, parents partake of conversations and methods to intervene and educate their teens. And because social media has become the cornerstone of most relationships and friendships, some parents restrict access to social media as a disciplining tool.  For younger teens, parents limit their time online.  

What came as a surprise to me is that parents who have a higher education tend to be more distant from their teens when it comes to online practices.  Furthermore, parents who have a lesser income are more involved and talk to their children about online conduct, content, what they consume online, and how they behave with others.  What I also found slightly disturbing is that parents' who have a higher income tend to speak less to their teens about online practices.  It reminded me of Bob from S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders.  In retrospect, all he needed was limitations in his life to be more centered and behaved. Perhaps more parent involvement would have saved his life. (Not that this is what will happen to teens if their parents aren't involved in their online lives, but it does spark a thought.)

This article enlightened me to the fact that teachers and librarians need to be mindful of how their students' parents interact with their teens regarding digital media.  Some parents can be more overbearing when it comes to their children, but by the same token, some teens can engage in inappropriate activity when unsupervised or uneducated about how to behave online. 

This article equips the future librarian to expand their knowhow on the family dynamic to better serve the students, teachers, and the community.  Online safety is a growing concern among communities, and now legislators, and is a topic that needs to be taught to students in a school and social environment.  If the librarian works together with parents to channel successful online use practices, their child's educational experience with technology will be a responsible and successful one.

PEW (32 pages)