Parents’ of adolescents use of social networking sites

Abstract

The use of social networking sites (SNSs) has increased exponentially, especially among adolescents. While parents use SNS more than the general population of adults, very little is known about parents’ of adolescents behaviors in a social networking environment. Guided by a uses and gratification perspective, the purpose of this study was to examine parents’ of adolescents (N=649) use of SNSs to monitor and connect with their children’s life. Analyses revealed that parents of adolescents used SNSs for parenting more often than other online social activities such as instant messaging, Skype, chat rooms, or blogging. The top two reasons for using SNSs were to communicate with children and extended family. Hierarchical logistic regression results indicated that parents of adolescents who used a greater number of SNS activities were more likely to use SNSs to communicate with their children, their children’s friends, and the parents of their children’s friends. Those parents who had positive attitudes toward technology were more likely to use SNSs to communicate with their children’s friends but less likely to communicate with parents of their children’s friends. Parents of older adolescents were more likely to use SNSs to communicate with their children.