Title
Social Media: Current Trends Among Children and Their Parents and Implications Regarding Interpersonal Communication
Abstract
Social media is an ever-evolving form of technological communication that affects different
generations in different ways. As modern children have grown up with social technologies
integrated into their daily lives, parents have been left in the midst of a generational gap. Recent
studies have shown that older generations are now greatly increasing their social media use, in an
effort to, among other reasons, connect with their “digitized” children. Children’s current social
media trends indicate slightly slowing growth of new social media users among youth. Both
parents and children view modern social media as having both positive and negative
consequences, and largely maintain that face-to-face communication is more desirable than
communicating through social media. This study examines social media and parent-child
communication in the context of Instructional-Affective Communication Theory and Media
Richness theory, and presents findings of an originally conducted survey to examine the trends in
social media use among children and their parents and what these trends imply regarding
interpersonal communication.
Suggested Citation
Simonpietri, Stacie.
(2011).
Social Media: Current Trends Among Children and Their Parents and Implications Regarding Interpersonal Communication.
Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy,
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/109501.