Web Insight: has social networking affected the quality of your children’s lives?

For Americans with children, has social networking or other instantaneous online communication improved or diminished the quality of their children’s lives?

The news is often filled with evidence of the potential perils of online communication for children. We have even come to learn that low-tech parenting has been a quiet staple among Silicon Valley moguls for years.

In the Center’s Digital Future Survey, we asked parents about the effects of social networking or other instantaneous online communication on their kids.

In 2018, 45.4%said that this technology had neither improved nor diminished their children’s lives. On the positive side, 2.1% said that social networking or other instantaneous online communication had improved their kids’ lives a lot, and another 19.3% said that it improved their lives somewhat.

On the other hand, 25.2% said that it had diminished their children’s lives somewhat, and another 8% said it had diminished them a lot.

Since we first asked this question in 2015, the responses have been fairly consistent. The biggest change has been in those answering diminished a lot, up from 2.9% in 2015 to 8% in 2018.

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September 24, 2019