Social Media Use and the Parent-Child Relationship, including the moderating role of Gender

Abstract

The central aim of this study is to explore whether social media use of adolescents is related to parent-child relationship quality, as well as to assess whether the gender of the child moderates this relationship. The need for this research comes from a lack of literature regarding the relation between adolescent social media use and the parent-child relationship, while social media use has seen a vast increase over the latest years. Method: A school-based survey was conducted among 440 adolescents aged 12 to 19 (M = 14.86, SD = 1.79, 53% male). Results: The current study shows that there is no relation between social media use and father-child relationship quality, but a positive relation between social media use and mother-child relationship quality. Furthermore, the relation between social media use and father-child or mother-child relationship quality is not moderated by the gender of the child. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that frequent adolescent social media use is related to high mother-child relationship quality. This may be possible because mothers generally spend more time with their children, and thus can be more involved in their children’s social media use, which could lead to higher mother-child relationship quality. However, additional research is needed to examine what factors explain or moderate this positive relation, so that interventions based on these factors may also positively influence the relation between social media use and the father-child relationship.