Parent-Child Connections on Facebook and Cyberbullying Gustavo S. Mesch University of Haifa Israel

Parent-Child Connections on Facebook and Cyberbullying In recent years, both youth and adults are increasingly using social networking sites (SNS) and in the age group 50-64, 56 percent reported having a profile on Facebook (Dugan & Brenner, 2013). The widespread adoption of a social networking site (SNS) in this age category has resulted in parents connecting with their children as “friends” online (Madden, Cortesi, Gasser, Lenhart & Duggan, 2012). This new form of connection between parents and children has prompted researchers to investigate the motivation for friending (boyd, Hargittai, Schultz, Palfrey, 2011), children’s perceptions of privacy (Kanter, Affifi & Robbins, 2012),& online family communication One understudied area of research is if presence of a parent as a Facebook contact might be a protective factor from online negative experiences.

Parent-Child Connections on Facebook and Cyberbullying Previous studies parent-child connection on SNS studied college students (Kanter, et al, 2012, Burke et al, 2013). Different from these studies we focus on young adolescents (aged 12-18). Consistent with recent developments we distinguish between parental control and child voluntary disclosure of information and their differential effects on cyberbullying (Kerr, Statin & Burk, 2010). In addition, different from previous studies that had mainly relied on purposive samples; we use a representative sample of American adolescents.

Parent-Child Connections on Facebook and Cyberbullying Cyber-bullying refers to acts performed through digital media that involves repeated hostile or aggressive messages intended to harm (Tokunaga, 2010). In the study of factors that might decrease the risk of exposure to such acts, parental monitoring and disclosure has been emphasized (Mesch, 2009; Sasson & Mesch, 2014). Parental knowledge of youth activities is derived from two main sources: Parental monitoring and child disclosure. (Stattin & Kerr, 2000). Parental monitoring refers to parental knowledge of children activities through active search of information. Child disclosure refers to childrens’ voluntary disclosure of information to parents. Following this definition it is possible to see the presence of a parent as a connection in a SNS of his/her child as a new form of child disclosure. (Stavrinides, Georgiu & Demetriou, 2010).

Parent-child connections on Facebook and cyberbullying Different from parental monitoring that involves active actions of the parents to gather information, child disclosure is based on the youth willingness to share voluntarily information with the parents. Acceptance of a request for being a “friend” in a social networking site fills the conditions of disclosure and the parent has the opportunity to directly observe children’s activities on SNS

Hypothesis H1: Engaging in risky online activities such as sharing a password with friends, having a public profile, or lying about one’s age will increase the odds of cyberbullying and the number of negative experiences on SNS. H2: The greater the use of parental control, the lower the odds of exposure to Cyberbullying and negative SNS experiences. RQ1: What is the relationship between a parent-child connection on Facebook and the odds of children participating in risky activities online such as sharing a password or lying about their age? It it is disclosure we expect a negative relationship.

Data The 2011 Teens and Digital Citizenship Survey sponsored by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project obtained telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 799 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old and their parents living in the continental United States (Pew and American Life, 2011).

Variables Dependent Variables Negative experiences on social networking sites. A scale created from responses to six items. Respondents indicated if they had ever had experiences in SNS that resulted in a negative interpersonal outcome (i.e.arguments or confrontations, problems with parents, a physical fight, ended a friendship and got them in trouble at school. Responses to the items were yes (coded as 1) or no (coded as 0) (α=.72). Responses were combined in a single scale using the sum of the responses to each item ( x̄ =.88, SD=1.33). Being a victim of cyberbullying. The concept was measured with a single item that asked the teenager respondents to indicate if in the last 12 months they had been bullied online through , IM or on a social networking site. Positive responses were coded 1, and negative responses were coded 0 (x̄ =.14, SD=.34). 14 percent reported that they had been bullied online in the last year.

Independent Variables Parental Control : a scale that combined the responses to three items. Parents indicated if they used parental controls or other means to block, filter or monitor their child’s online activities, if they checked the websites their child visited and if they restricted their child’s use of the Internet (x̄ =2.41, SD=1.15). Positive responses to each item were added and combined into a single scale (α=.70). Parent-child friending on social networking sites. We used a single item that asked parents to indicate if they were friends with or otherwise connected to their child on an online social network. Positive responses were coded as 1 and negative responses as 0. Exposure to online risks. We used four variables to measure this concept. frequency of using social networking sites on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from not often to several times a day.

Activities on social networking sites by creating a scale of responses to seven items. Use social networking sites to post comments on friends’ posts, send private messages to friends within the SNS, send instant messages to friends through the SNS, tag people in posts, post status updates, post videos or photos, and play games on a SNS. Responses were provided in a yes/no scale. By summing the positive responses to the items a single scale was created (α=.80, x̄ =5.65, SD=1.82). Having a Public profile indicated “private SNS profile do you limit what certain friends can and cannot see, or can all your friends see the same thing?”. Public profile so everyone could see the same thing was coded “1’ and limiting access was coded “0”. Lying about one’s age respondents to indicated if they had ever said that they were older than they were. Responses were “yes’ (coded 1) and “no’ (coded 0). Shared password was measured with an item that asked to indicate if they had ever shared one of their passwords with a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend. Responses to all of the items were dichotomous. We controlled for the child’s age, gender and race as well as for parental income and marital status.

Descriptives Average age of the adolescents was years old (age range was 12 to 17 years old). Fifty-one percent of the samples were boys, and 49 percent were girls. Risky behavior online: 44 percent admitted lying about their age, 30 percent had shared their passwords with a friend, and 16 percent kept a public profile open to everyone. Having a parent as a friend on a SNS was very common with 79 percent of the sample reporting doing so. Fourteen percent of the youngsters reported having been a victim of cyberbullying.

Findings Table 1. T-test for differences in adolescents’ background and parental friending on a SNS

Children who had their parent as a connection were younger than those who did not. No statistically significant differences in gender, The average education of parents connected to their child was lower than those who were not, and the proportion of married parents was higher than those who were not connected to their children. As assumed previously, being friends with one’s child on Facebook appears to be a new type of parental mediation.

Table 2.Multivariate models predicting negative experiences on SNS and cyberbullying

Risk activities associated with exposure to cyberbullying: lied about age, having a public profile on SNS and frequency of SNS use. (support for H1. ) It was expected that restrictive mediation will decrease the number of negative experiences on SNS The results do not support H2. The central question : The results indicate that friending a parent is negatively associated with the number of negative experiences as a result of the use of the SNS. Having a parent as a SNS connection reduces the likelihood of being a victim of cyberbullying, supporting H3.

Table 3. Logistic regressions predicting risky online activities

As the table indicates, older children are more likely to share their passwords with friends, lie about their age and be involved in more Facebook activities. However, they are also less likely than younger children to have a public profile that everybody can see. Gender :Boys are more likely to lie about their age and have a public profile on Facebook. Girls are more likely to share their passwords. Parental control reduces the likelihood of sharing a password, having a public profile and the extent of Facebook activity. Finally, having a parent as a Facebook connection has no effect on risk activities

Discussion First, we found that participation in online risk activities is associated with the exposure to negative experiences in SNS and exposure to cyber-bullying. In addition, again consistent with this perspective both types of parental control have effects on the dependent variables. Parent child connection on a SNS has the highest protective effect, as it reduces both negative experiences on SNS and the likelihood of exposure to cyberbullying. The answer to the final questions about the mechanism of the effect was less successful