Parental Perspectives on Smartphone Usage. A Qualitative Study of the “Smartphone Usage Agreement” and Other Control Strategies

The smartphone has become an integral part of contemporary society, and concerns about its effects, especially on younger generations, are increasingly widespread. This article aims to reflect on the strategies of control and family mediation of smartphone usage implemented by parents towards preadolescents and adolescents, with a specific focus on the socio-educational experience of the “Smartphone Usage Agreement”. The Agreement was conceived and experimented within the framework of the “Educare digitale” blog, an Italian blog addressed to parents and educators. Through six in-depth interviews to a sample of parents, opinions regarding the relationship between young people and smartphones and their attitude towards parental mediation were collected. The data highlights a still limited understanding of the characteristics of the media ecosystem by parents and their tendency to resort to control and punishment strategies rather than negotiation based on socio-educational principles. The conclusions lead to the necessity of implementing digital literacy practices based on dialogue and negotiation of meanings between young people and adults, but with an eye towards the need to regulate an increasingly complex media ecosystem.