Families and Social Media Use: The Role of Parents’ Perceptions about Social Media Impact on Family Systems in the Relationship between Family Collective Efficacy and Open Communication

Fortuna Procentese, Flora Gatti and Immacolata Di Napoli
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Fortuna Procentese: Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, 80133 Naples, Italy
Flora Gatti: Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, 80133 Naples, Italy
Immacolata Di Napoli: Department of Humanities, University of Naples Federico II, 80133 Naples, Italy

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-11

Abstract: Communication through social media characterizes modern lifestyles and relationships, including family interactions. The present study aims at deepening the role that parents’ perceptions about social media effects on family systems can exert within their family functioning, specifically referring to the relationship between collective family efficacy and open communications within family systems with adolescents. A questionnaire to detect the openness of family communications, the collective family efficacy and the perceptions about the impacts of social media on family systems was administered to 227 Italian parents who had one or more teenage children, and who use Facebook and WhatsApp to communicate with them. From the results, these perceptions emerge as a mediator in the relationship between the collective family efficacy and the openness of communications, suggesting that it is not only the actual impact of social media on family systems that matters but also parents’ perceptions about it and how much they feel able to manage their and their children’s social media use without damaging their family relationships. Thus, the need to foster parents’ positive perceptions about social media’s potential impact on their family relationships emerges. A strategy could be the promotion of knowledge on how to functionally use social media.

Keywords: social media; family communication; collective family efficacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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