These days, a trip to grandma and grandpa’s house means a ton of screen time, according to new research published this month in the Journal of Children and Media.
“I am the mother of four kids, and my mother has always helped me take care of them,” said Celia Sada Garibay, a graduate student studying communication in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona and lead author of the study. “I noticed that my children used media differently when they were with her than when they were with me, and my friends with children noticed the same thing.”
Sada Garibay and the research team found that kids spend nearly half their time with their grandparents interacting with or watching media on screens. This means that understanding media is important for kids, their parents and their grandparents.
“Through our research, we discovered that media consumption is not only important for grandchildren, but that understanding media is just as important for grandparents, Sada Garibay said. “Grandparents may want to watch along with their grandchildren or just want to understand what the children are watching.”
In fact, becoming more familiar with the media their grandchildren interacted with could help strengthen their relationships, the study indicated. Results found that younger grandparents and grandparents more familiar with technology were more likely to use or watch media alongside younger grandchildren and have discussions with them about what media is dangerous.
Grandparents who were less familiar with technology were more likely to restrict media use and grandparents with negative beliefs about media were significantly more likely to disagree with their adult children about media use. Researchers found this tension could impact relationships: “Positive attitudes toward media were associated with higher relationship satisfaction, while increased media-related disagreement was associated with lower relationship satisfaction,” said the university.
Overall, Sada Garibay and her fellow researcher – associate professor of communication Matthew Lapierre – surveyed 350 non-primary care giver grandparent participants living in the U.S. with grandchildren between the ages of 2 and 10. Of those participants, 178 were grandfathers and 172 grandmothers were selected, with an average age of 55 and grandchildren with an average age of 5 years old.
When the participants last saw their grandchild, they reported spending an average of seven hours with that child. Media consumption during that time typically included two hours watching TV, and another hour playing videogames or using the internet on a device.
Researchers also asked the grandparents what strategies they used to oversee their grandchildren’s media use. These included restriction, supervision, instruction and co-use. They found that grandfathers were less likely to supervise their children than grandmothers.
“Supervision involves keeping an eye on what your grandchild is doing, and the media they watch,” Sada Garibay said. “Being instructive means explaining the content of something to your grandchild, while restrictive actions involve limiting the amount of time a child can use technology – or what content they are allowed to view. Co-using means watching media alongside your grandchild.”
Sada Garibay’s team found that building confidence in technology is a good way for grandparents to help care for their grandchildren.
“Grandparents with more of those skills were able to do significantly better with their grandchildren than those who don’t have those skills,” she said. “If grandparents can gain those technological skills, then they have better tools to manage their grandchildren’s media use.”
As we all become more dependent on technology, concerns have been raised about how much screen time children have in the U.S. Some states have even moved forward to ban cell phone use in schools, Audacy reported last year.