Parents’ understandings of social media algorithms in children’s lives in England

Misunderstandings, parked understandings, transactional understandings and proactive understandings amidst datafication

Bibliographic Data

ID21190845
AuthorsRanjana Das (0000-0003-0100-1817, University of Surrey, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume17
Issue4
Pages506-522
Publication date2023-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Children and Media (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-2798 • E-ISSN: 1748-2801
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17482798.2023.2240899
OpenAlexW4385660784
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited48

In this paper, I ask how parents understand and make sense of their children’s relationships with social media algorithms. Drawing upon 30 think-aloud interviews with parents raising children aged 0 to 18 in England, in this paper, I pay attention to parents’ understandings of and consequent approaches to platform algorithms in relation to their children’s lives. I locate this work within user-centric research on people’s understandings of algorithms, and research about parents’ perspectives on data and datafication in relation to sharenting. Through my data, I draw out four modes – misunderstandings, parked understandings, transactional understandings and pro-active understandings. I suggest that parents’ often flawed understandings of their children’s myriad interfaces with algorithms deserve scrutiny not through a lens of blame or individualised parental (ir) responsibility but within cross-cutting contexts of parenting cultures and families’ diverse contextual resources and restraints. I conclude by highlighting attention to parents’ approaches to algorithms in children’s lives as critical to parents’ data and algorithm literacies

Blame · Scrutiny · Sociology · Transactional leadership · Child Development and Digital Technology · Computer Science · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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