In the age when children spend more and more time on mobile media and many of them have their own smartphone or tablet device (Chang et al., 2018; Common Sense Census, 2019), it’s crucial to understand what factors are associated with children’s mobile media use to further guide their use. For children in primary school, main caregivers play an important role in regulating their mobile media use. In China, due to parents’ heavy workload, grandparenting is very common, occupying 34% (CFPS, 2016). Thus, this study intended to examine the effect of different caregivers’ mediation on children’s mobile media use.
Previous research studying factors of children’s screen media use and smartphone addiction mainly focused on demographic factors (Blackwell et al., 2014), parents’ media use habits and attitudes towards mobile media (Lauricella, Wartella, & Rideout, 2015) and parenting styles (Bae, 2015). Some research also found active and restrictive parental mediation could prevent children’s excessive Internet use (Kalmus, Blinka, & Ólafsson, 2015). However, research about the impact of grandparenting in China was limited. Some studies found grandparenting would affect children’s mental health, academic ability and parent-child relationship (Han, & Guo, 2016; Yao, & Liu, 2019). Because of grandparents’ limited digital media literacy, they may have little restriction on grandchildren’s mobile media use and further affect the influence of parental mediation. Thus in addition to parental mediation, this study took grandparents’ attitude and grandparenting into consideration to explain children’s mobile media use. Main research hypotheses were as follows:
H1: Active parental mediation positively affects (a) the time of mobile media use, (b) time spent on different Apps, and (c) mobile device skills.
H2: Restrictive parental mediation negatively affects (a) the time of mobile media use, (b) time spent on different Apps, and (c) mobile device skills.
H3: Grandparents’ attitude towards grandchildren’s mobile media use positively affects (a) the time of mobile media use, (b) time spent on different Apps, and (c) mobile device skills.
H4: Grandparenting moderates the influence of (a) active and (b) restrictive parental mediation and (c) grandparents’ attitude.
In this study, a survey of primary school students from grade 2 to 6 was conducted in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province. Considering students’ reading and understanding ability, students in grade 1 weren’t included. Based on education quality and source of students, three primary schools were selected: Jinling Primary School, Yueyahu Primary School and Sheshan Star-City Primary School. In each school, one class was randomly selected for each grade and students in that class were asked to fill in the questionnaire. A total of 498 valid responses were obtained.
Regression analysis showed that active parental mediation positively affected the time of mobile media use, use of entertainment, social and information Apps, and mobile device skills. Restrictive parental mediation negatively affected the time of mobile media use. Grandparents’ attitude positively affected the time of mobile media use, use of entertainment and social Apps, and mobile device skills. Grandparenting weakly moderated the effect of grandparents’ attitude on entertainment Apps use and mobile device skills.