Children’s media use in low-income families: Exploring associations between co-viewing television and parent child relationship quality, child well-being, and adolescent functioning

The rapid proliferation of media devices in homes has led to increased media consumption among children and adolescents, with decades of prior research highlighting several negative effects of excessive screen time on children’s well-being. To that end, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends co-viewing devices with children and stresses that screen time for children shouldn’t always be alone time. Recent scholarship suggests that joint use of media devices can strengthen parent-child relationship quality and may support children’s language development and may help children learn values such as kindness, cooperation, and empathy. However, little empirical evidence exists of its effectiveness particularly among low-income families. This research brings together three studies that investigate the impact of media use on children’s well-being and the importance of parental involvement in scaffolding children’s media consumption. As recent scholarship reports greater media consumption among children from low-income families, all three studies examine media use by children in disadvantaged families and draw attention towards the implications of parent-child joint use of media devices on developmental outcomes during early childhood and adolescence. The three studies advance our understanding about the influence of co-viewing media devices on parent-child relationship quality and on child and adolescent well-being. Further, this research contributes to the existing scholarship on parenting practices by considering the shift in parent-child interactions from traditional settings such as playground or libraries, to joint use of media devices. Lastly, findings from this study broadens the role of social work professionals in clinical and child welfare settings, focusing on promoting healthy family media habits and strengthening existing policy guidelines on media use by children and adolescents, particularly in low-income families.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Social Work

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Manisha, Minal

Contributors dc:contributor

• Schneider, William
• Ostler, Teresa Ann
• Wu, Chi-Fang
• Napolitano, Christopher

• Co-viewing
• Child wellbeing
• Adolescent functioning
• Screen time
• Media use

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Minal Manisha

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129701

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129701