Social media use, effects, and parental mediation among school adolescents in a developing country

Abstract

Social media use among adolescents is becoming increasingly common worldwide. While social media use has many benefits for everyone, it can also pose risks especially for adolescents, depending on how and why they use it. Therefore, it is an important research and public agenda, especially in developing countries like Ethiopia where there is an increasingly growing social media use among adolescents in these days. This study aimed to assess social media use, effects, and parental mediation among school adolescents in Ethiopia. The study employed concurrent triangulation cross-sectional study design. Simple random sampling and purposive sampling were used to select 227 participants, including adolescents and parents. Descriptive statistics were used to present, analyze, and interpret the quantitative data using SPSS software version 20.0. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The findings were then triangulated. The study found that the majority (86.3%) of the respondents were widely using various social media platforms for different purposes. Both adolescents and parents reported that adolescents were experiencing both positive and negative effects from social media use, including academic, mental, social, and health related aspects. However, adolescents emphasized the positive effects, while parents stressed the negative effects more. The study also found that many parents were supportive of their children's social media use for educational purposes, but most do not have control over or do not supervise their children's social media usage. The study recommends that the government, schools, parents, and other concerned bodies work together to improve understanding of and promote safe social media usage among adolescents.

Keywords

• Adolescent
• Developing country
• Ethiopia
• Parental mediation
• Social media