Navigating the Digital World: A Phenomenological Investigation of Parents’ Guiding Experiences Among Adolescents (Preprint)

Abstract

As time progressed, the use of social media has changed the ways our society has lived and communed with each other, most noticeably it has evolved the way relationships are formed between parents and adolescent children. It has led to significant changes resulting in parents' views of social media, which can be both beneficial and harmful.

This paper further understands how parents' overall lived experiences in social media guidance for their children and their parental mediations and insights.

Using phenomenological approach as well as In-depth interviews as well as Focused Group Discussions to find the data needed. The researchers gathered 12 participants in total, seven (7) for the in-depth interview and five (5) for the focused group discussions. The participants were parents from Davao City who had children 10-19 years old and daily social media users. Thematic analysis was also utilized to triangulate data to corresponding themes and ideas that appeared consistently with the participant’s answers. This allows for better conclusions and thorough results.

Although the research questions had been separated within three categories a total of 9 themes were observed throughout the whole interview (1) The incapabilities and insufficiencies of parents regarding social media guidance, (2) Concerns of parents in terms of content and social media activities, (3) Negative experiences of social media on parent-child relationship, (4) Positive experiences of social media on parent-child relationship, (5) Hands-on strategies of parents to improve social media guidance, (6) Improving knowledge about social media guidance, (7) Passive adjustments of parents to improve on social media guidance, (8) Changes and differences observed by parents, (9) Effective Parental Mediation realized by parents.

Although parents' views were mostly negative, there were positive views that led to their children benefiting from social media. Effective ways of parenting observed by parents were being more open to their uses and co-using social media allowed for major improvements and bonds between parent and child.

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