# An Exploratory Investigation of Parenting Strategies for Managing Adolescent Social Media Use

> **NIH NIH R21** · RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL · 2021 · $215,336

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Over 89% of adolescents use social media, and prior studies suggest that social media experiences have
critical implications for adolescents' psychosocial adjustment. Parents may play an important role in promoting
adaptive social media use, yet studies examining parents' involvement in adolescent social media use are
limited. For many years, research has focused on parenting strategies to manage youth's traditional media
use (e.g., TV, movies). However, social media sites (e.g., Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram) are unique in that
adolescents use them to both consume and create content, frequently access them via personal devices (i.e.,
smartphones), and often rely on them for peer interactions. These features create new parenting challenges
and require updated assessment strategies. At least six media-specific parenting strategies may impact teens'
social media use: communication, co-use, modeling, limit setting, non-technical monitoring, and technical
mediation (e.g., use of parental control software). The proposed study will characterize these and other
strategies, examining the degree to which they are influenced by traditional parenting dimensions (i.e., warmth,
control, structure, alliance) and parents' digital skills. Furthermore, this study offers a needed next step to
understand the effectiveness of these strategies in managing teens' social media use. We will recruit 80
adolescents (ages 12-14) and their parents from the community to participate in a multi-method investigation of
social media-specific parenting strategies. Parents and teens will complete baseline self-report measures and
a novel observationally coded task to assess in vivo parent-teen interactions around parent management of
teen social media use. In addition, they will complete a two-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA)
procedure assessing daily variations in parent management strategies as well as teen social media
experiences and mood. The primary aims of the study are to: 1) characterize social media-specific parenting
strategies using a multi-method procedure, 2) examine parenting factors that predict social media-specific
parenting strategies (i.e., overall parenting dimensions and digital skills), and 3) examine associations among
parent management strategies, adolescent social media experiences, and psychosocial adjustment. Findings
will serve as the foundation for refining a larger scale assessment study to examine social media-specific
parenting strategies and adolescents' short and long-term social-emotional adjustment. This will inform a
preventive intervention to enhance parenting strategies for managing social media use. This research directly
advances NICHD's mission, including the Scientific Vision Theme of “behavior,” by examining the effects of
emerging technologies on adolescent development and by identifying family factors that are most likely to
promote positive outcomes.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10216400
- **Project number:** 1R21HD102634-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** RHODE ISLAND HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Jacqueline Nesi
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $215,336
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2023-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10216400

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10216400, An Exploratory Investigation of Parenting Strategies for Managing Adolescent Social Media Use (1R21HD102634-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10216400. Licensed CC0.

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