Screen times that are popular under the care of grandparents, research finds

When grandma and grandpa are in charge, the kids are probably staring at the screen. This is a long-standing parent complaint currently supported by University of Arizona research.

Previous studies have looked at how grandparents in other countries oversee the screen time of their children, but a new study published in the Journal of Children and Media found that nearly 50% of the time American children spend with their grandparents involves interacting with or watching the media on-screen.

A focus on the unique and expanding role of grandparents as caregivers reveals growing interpersonal dynamics that can affect media habits and family relationships, said lead research author Cecilia Sada Galivey.

“I am a mother of four and my mother has always helped me to take care of them,” said Sada Galivey, a graduate student studying communications at the University of Social Sciences. “I found that my kids use the media in a different way than they did when they were with her and were with me.

“Through our research, we have discovered that media consumption is not only important to our grandchildren, but understanding media is equally important to our grandparents. They either want to see it with their grandfather or just understand what their children are seeing.”

Alongside Matthew Lapierre, an associate professor of communication, Sada Galivey has surveyed 350 grandparents in the United States about the strategies they use to manage their time with their grandchildren and media consumption.

Participants were grandparents and grandparents of children aged 2-10 years, but were supervised at least three times a month. Of the 350 participants, 178 grandfathers and 172 grandmothers were selected, with an average age of 55 years. The average age of the corresponding 350 people was 5 years old.

Participants in the survey also reported their own living conditions. Approximately 35% reported not living with their grandchildren and family, 25% reported several weeks a year, 6% reported less than six months a year, 8% reported living with their family for at least half of the year, and 10% were 10% per year.

Participants were asked about the last time they cared for their grandchildren and how many hours their children spent using the media. This includes watching TV, movies and other videos on TV, using a computer or handheld device, playing video games, and using the internet and apps on your device.

Grandparents were also asked what strategies they used to oversee their grandchildren when using media, such as supervision, beneficial, restrictive or joint use.

“The director includes looking at what their grandchildren are doing and the media they are watching,” Sada Galivey said. “Benefits means explaining something to your grandchildren, but restrictive behavior involves limiting how long a child can use technology or what kind of content they can see.

In addition to examining child media consumption and grandparent mediation strategies, Sada Galivey and Lapierre asked participants to assess their digital skills on a 4-point scale. Participants also shared perspectives on what they consider to be a positive and negative impact of media consumption, and explained the seriousness of media-related disagreements with the parents of their grandchildren.

Digital Difference

When participants last looked after their grandchildren, they reported spending an average of seven hours with the child. The study found that children spent an additional hour watching TV, playing video games, and using the internet on their devices.

Participants in the study employ a variety of mediation techniques, Sada Galivey said. They monitored what their grandchildren were most common, then limited media time and engaged in deeper discussions. Grandparents most often participated in watching and playing with their grandchildren.

The findings showed that grandparents are more likely to use or monitor media with their younger grandchildren. While less tech-savvy grandparents were more likely to limit what their grandchildren could see, younger tech-savvy grandparents were more likely to instead talk to their grandchildren about the dangers of the media and what to see.

The results also show that grandfathers are less likely to oversee their grandchildren than their grandmothers, but technical know-how has led to an increase in oversight for all grandparents.

Sada Garibay and Lapierre also found that grandparents with negative beliefs about the media are very likely to oppose adult children about their use of the media. Positive media attitudes were associated with higher relationship satisfaction, whereas increased media-related disagreements were associated with lower relationship satisfaction.

Overall, Sada Galivey said in this study that consuming media is not only an important part of American children’s everyday life, but also showed that grandparents approach an approach that handles these situations differently for a variety of reasons.

“I think our most important outcome is that the level of confidence in technology from our grandparents was a key predictor of the type of mediation strategies they use,” Sada Galivey said.

“The more confident my grandparents feel about media and technology, the more I was able to interact with my grandchildren’s media. Grandparents with those skills were able to be significantly better with their grandchildren than those who didn’t have those skills.