Abstract:

The presence of children on the Internet and their independent use of mobile devices has increased awareness of the importance of parental mediation in the use of technology. The current studies indicate an association between parental control of digital technology use and the children's exposure to various types of online risks.

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the elementary students’ perception of parental mediation of digital technology use and its relation to their mobile phone use experiences. Within the research agenda in mind, the study focused on:
(1) the elementary students’ perceptions of parental mediation of their digital technology use;
(2) the level of cyber-victimization experienced by the study respondents;
(3) the level of self-perceived smartphone addiction of study respondents; and
(4) a relationship between students’ perceptions of parental mediation, experienced cyber-victimization, and self-perceived smartphone addiction of elementary school students.

The 309 questionnaires have been administered to students from 5th to 8th grade of elementary schools in the southern part of Croatia. The research was conducted in spring 2020 during the first confinement due to the COVID-19. In the given period all students were involved in distance learning. Study participants were contacted through the school and completed the online questionnaires from home.

The questionnaire designed for this study included general demographic questions (student gender, school grade, grade point average, town size) and three separate scales: the parental mediation of children’s digital technology use scale – PM-CDTU (Shin & Li, 2017), the smartphone addiction scale - SAS (Lopez-Fernandez, 2017), and the cyber-victimization aspect of the cyberbullying scale - CS (Machimbarrena and Garaigordobil, 2017). For this study, all three scales were translated in Croatian and later translated back to English by an independent translator. Furthermore, we performed both exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis of the Croatian versions of the scales.

On a descriptive level, the data was analyzed using measures such as frequency, mean score, and standard deviation. To determine the correlation between respondents´ scores on parental mediation of children’s digital technology use scale, scores on the smartphone addiction scale, and scores on the cyberbullying scale, Pearson coefficient of correlation was used on the p<.001 level and p<.05 level.

In general, the data collected from the representative sample indicated a significant negative correlation between the elementary school students’ perception of parental mediation of their digital technology use and self-perceived smartphone addiction. The results did not indicate a statistically significant correlation between parental mediation and experienced cyber-victimization. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation between self-perceived smartphone addiction and experienced cyber-victimization.

Study results are situated in the context of current literature on parental mediation of technology use, cyberbullying, and technology-related addictive behavior. The discussion and the conclusion include educational policy implications and suggestions for further research.

Keywords:

Elementary school students, mobile phone use, parental mediation, cyberbullying, addictive behavior.