Association between daily parental surveillance and adolescent privacy and autonomy

Adolescence is marked by a tension between adolescents' privacy and autonomy development and parents' desire for knowledge about their adolescents' behaviors and whereabouts. While prior work has primarily examined parental monitoring behaviors that depend on control or solicitation of information, new parental surveillance technology enables parents to obtain objective information about their adolescent. However, the impacts of parental surveillance technology use on core adolescent developmental needs-like privacy and autonomy-are not well understood. This study (N = 142 parent-adolescent dyads and N = 3,588 survey days) used a 4-week daily diary design to examine the association between parents' daily use of parental monitoring behaviors and adolescents' daily experiences of privacy and autonomy. Parental surveillance technology use was associated with adolescents' feelings of privacy invasion the following day, but there was little evidence of an association between parents' surveillance technology use and adolescents' feelings of privacy invasion and autonomy on the same day. Results indicate that parental surveillance technology use may impact adolescents' feelings of privacy invasion but may not have broad negative impacts on other adolescent development needs, like autonomy, on a day-to-day basis. While parental surveillance technology is intended to support adolescents' physical safety, this work highlights the psychological impacts of its use and the ways it may hinder adolescent development on a daily level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).