Preschool Children's Views Regarding Their Parents' Frequency of Internet Use at Home and Its Relevant Effects

Abstract

This research aims to describe the intensity of parents' Internet use at home and its relevant effects on their children based on their preschool children's views. This study, a qualitative research, has a phenomenological design. The research group was selected using the criterion sampling and is composed of 23 children attending preschool between the ages of five and six. Research data have been collected through semi-structured interviews with the children and demographic forms from the parents. Based on the descriptive analysis technique, all data have undergone data reduction, visualization by conversion into systematic wholes, extrapolation, and lastly interpretation. The following are some significant findings of the current study. Children think their parents spend "too much" time on the Internet at home. According to children's views, parents use the Internet mostly to play games, browse social media, message others, and watch TV series and soccer matches. According to the children, mothers are the family members who use the Internet most often. Children are quite disturbed by their parents' home Internet use; they feel unhappy, lonely, bored and angry when their parents are online. When their parents are found online, a significant majority of the children spend their time using web-based applications on smartphones, tablets, and computers like their parents. Relying on game-based applications, more than half the children believe preschool kids should make use of the Internet.