Parental Monitoring in the Digital Age

Smartphones and social media have considerably transformed adolescents’ media engagement. Adolescents consume, create, and share media content anywhere, anytime, and with anyone, often beyond parents’ oversight. Parents try to keep track of their adolescents’ media use by employing control, surveillance, and solicitation. This chapter explores the prevalence and predictors of such monitoring strategies, and their effectiveness in managing adolescents’ media use and shaping the potential consequences of adolescents’ media use for their mental health. In addition, the chapter discusses parents’ use of digital media for monitoring adolescents’ nonmedia activities, such as the use of location-tracking applications. Overall, evidence regarding the prevalence, predictors, and effectiveness of parental media monitoring is limited and inconclusive. The chapter underscores the need for refining conceptualizations of media monitoring. Moreover, it highlights the importance of understanding the effectiveness of media monitoring within an ever-evolving digital world.