“It seems like it has always been with us!”: Introducing media technology into children’s lives and family interpersonal relationships

Abstract

Research on children and media often focuses on the risks surrounding children’s use of media technology and parents’ attempts to control, manage and limit it. However, while our knowledge of parental mediation styles and strategies is extensive, our understanding of what motivates parents and other members of the family to encourage children to use media technology is far from being comprehensive. Using qualitative data from an original empirical study of UK families and their media use, this article explores why parents and other relatives, such as grandparents, see value in children’s use of media, and how they encourage children to use media technology and maintain an ongoing relationship with it, introducing it into children’s lives and family interpersonal relationships from the early months of infancy.