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Daily Parent-Adolescent Digital Exchanges

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Abstract

The present study tracked adolescents via mobile phones to describe how parents and their adolescent children are using digital technologies in daily life (i.e. facilitating warmth and behavioral control), and whether these uses are associated with the quality of offline parent-adolescent interactions and with adolescents’ mental health. A sample of young adolescents (N = 388; mean age 13.37) completed a 14-day ecological momentary assessment in 2016- 2017, reporting on their daily digital contact and offline interactions with their parents and their mental health. Adolescents reported using texting and calling to communicate somewhat infrequently with their parents (i.e., on 29% of days), but days with more digital contacts (for both warmth and behavioral control) were also more likely to be characterized by more positive offline interactions with parents. Furthermore, adolescents struggling with mental health symptoms across the study period reported using texts/calls more frequently to seek out parent support, and parents were more likely to do text/call “check ins” on young people who were experiencing more behavioral problems. Results highlight the potential for digital communication devices to be used as tools in fostering parent-adolescent connection, support provision, and behavioral control in the digital era.

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Notes

  1. Initially, we attempted to model daily parent uplifts and inattention/hyperactivity symptoms as counts with Poisson distributions, but models failed to converge due to the computational burden of simultaneous numerical integration to adjust the distribution of our dependent variable while also fitting the models using FIML to adjust for missing data on both level 1 and 2. We now model parent uplifts and inattention/hyperactivity in linear models (which allow us to use all available data with FIML on both level 1 and level 2) with MLR-adjusted standard errors to account for non-normality. Results from Q2a linear models of parent uplifts are largely consistent with Poisson models (with listwise deletion at level 1; N = 381 over 4290 days), with one exception: in the Poisson model daily parent-adolescent digital control was also associated with more same-day parent uplifts (IRR = 1.14, p = .012).

  2. Results from the Q2b Poisson models of count parent uplifts were consistent with these linear model results: no association met FDR-corrected significance, though one association was significant at traditional p < .05: higher average levels of offline parent uplifts were associated with higher average levels of digital support seeking across the EMA study.

  3. Results from the Q3a Poisson models of count symptoms of inattention/hyperactivity were partially consistent, with two daily associations failing to meet traditional significant of p < .05 (Support Seeking IRR = 1.066, p = .242; Control IRR = 1.062, p = .258).

  4. Results from the Q3b Poisson models of count symptoms of inattention/hyperactivity were consistent with results from linear models (though the engagement-inattention/hyperactivity link met FDR-corrected significance in Poisson models but not linear models).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 296 Eberhart Bldg, PO Box 26170, Greensboro, NC, 27412-5001, USA

    Michaeline Jensen

  2. RTI International, Durham, NC, USA

    Madeleine J. George

  3. Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Michael A. Russell

  4. School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Melissa A. Lippold

  5. Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Candice L. Odgers

  6. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Candice L. Odgers

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  1. Michaeline Jensen
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  2. Madeleine J. George
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Jensen, M., George, M.J., Russell, M.A. et al. Daily Parent-Adolescent Digital Exchanges. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 49, 1125–1138 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00765-x

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