'Never-ending pressure': Mothers need support managing kids' technology use

• We interviewed mothers of young children to reflect on how they managed their children’s screen media practices during this tumultuous time.
• Our interviews suggest there is never-ending pressure on mothers to negotiate kids’ technology use.
• Mothers need support managing these new realities.

Constant re-negotiation of media use

• We recruited parents and caregivers through 10 neighbourhood parenting groups on Facebook.
• All mothers were in two-parent families, although one was solo parenting with the other parent overseas.
• Mothers shared that for most of the pandemic, they were reassessing and re-negotiating their children’s technology use.

Balancing time

• Mothers positioned video games played alone or with peers as more concerning.
• Families adopted strategies for monitoring screen time by using timers, scheduling screen time and limiting children’s access to WiFi or devices.

Guilt for letting someone down

• Several mothers cited pediatricians’ and researchers’ recommendations around screen time, and many felt that these guidelines placed immense pressure and expectations on them as parents during the pandemic.
• While they cited these guidelines as ideal, following them was more complicated.

Balancing space

• Families’ domestic spaces changed drastically with the lockdowns.
• Open-concept houses made it easier to see what kids were doing with technology for leisure, but was distracting when kids and parents were trying to work and learn from home.

It took a toll

• With online school, many mothers found they had to sit near their children to keep them focused and help with the technology.
• This was even more challenging for those who had two or more young children in school.
• Trying to work from home while supporting children took a toll.

Tech use changed a lot for families

• As the pandemic wore on, decisions and negotiations around screen time and where that screen time happened in the home were ongoing, and perhaps impossible to get completely “right.” Technology use changed a lot for families during the pandemic.
• Some children were introduced to technology all together, as families got new devices, platforms and apps.
• Instead of one family computer for example, with online school, each child had access to their own device.

Must accept shared responsibility

• It’s not enough to think our society can manage families’ changed home tech use and the burden of responsibility it brings to mothers just by having medical professionals offer screen time guidelines.
• One-size-fits-all solutions like screen time guidelines fail to take into account the complexity of technology in families.