Profiles of Parenting in the Digital Age: Associations With Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Use

This study assessed parental communication and behavior related to children's Internet and social media usage to delineate profiles of parenting regarding these newer forms of media and associated those profiles with youth alcohol and marijuana use.

Using data from 748 adolescents (mean age = 15.8, 52% female, 25% non-White) and their parents, latent class analysis was performed to identify classes based on items concerning device ownership, monitoring, and communication of online activities. The associations between class membership and ever use of alcohol and marijuana were then tested, controlling for screen time, general parenting, substance availability, and deviance.

We identified five classes: high media parenting (23%), low media parenting (20%), moderate media parenting with limited device access (11%), moderate media parenting with high device access (25%), and low monitoring but high communication about online activities (21%). Probability of class membership was differentially associated with contemporaneous and 1-year prospective alcohol and marijuana use. The low-device-access class had the highest percentage of abstainers at both time points. The lowest rate of abstaining was associated with membership in the high-device-access class but moderate levels of monitoring. Membership in the low media parenting class was associated with use of both substances.

This study provides a novel exploration of media parenting, an important construct in the context of increased access to personalized media devices that allow for streaming of mature media content related to substance use.