Computers & Education 183 (2022) 104504

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Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Parenting in the digital age: Attitudes, controls and limitations regarding children’s use of ICT

Duygu Gür *, Yalın Kılıç Türel

Computer and Instructional Technology Education, Fırat University, Elazı˘g, Turkey

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:

Digital parenting

Information and communication technologies (ICT)

Parental control Limitations Online risks

A B S T R A C T

Today, with the development of technology, many possibilities are offered to users; however, these possibilities bring along some risks and threats. It is very important to ensure that users, especially teenagers, can benefit from the possibilities of technology at the highest level by minimizing the existing risks. At this point, the roles, attitudes and behaviors of parents have an important effect. The purpose of this study is to reveal the attitudes, behaviors, controls and limitations of middle school students’ parents towards their children’s use of information tech-nologies. For this purpose, data were collected from parents through survey and interviews. The participants of the study consisted of 354 parents of 6th and 7th grade students from seven public schools and four private schools. The parents filled out a questionnaire. Also, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 volunteer parents. According to the results, parents ‘atti-tudes towards their children’s ICT use were positive and they especially supported their use of ICT for educational purposes. However, it was revealed that parents were concerned about the possible risks and security threats that their children may encounter in virtual environments, and therefore they take precaution in order to prevent their children from possible risks by informing, controlling and limiting their children. Based on the results, while children benefit from digital opportunities, they need to prevent themselves from digital risks as well through precautions and interventions with the support of school-parent cooperation.

1. Introduction

Technological developments increase people’s living standards (Nevado-Pena,˜ Lopez´-Ruiz, & Alfaro-Navarro, 2019) and reduce their workload (Demir & Ozmizrak,¨ 2014), which results in more meaningful lives. Thus, digital tools became an irrevocable aspect for people’s daily lives. Also, information and communication technologies (ICT) have also become a part of children’s lives and affected their development (Bardakçı, 2018; Chou, 2012; Yeh, Chang, & Chang, 2011). According to the Eurostat report (2020), 94% of children between the ages of 16 and 19 use the Internet daily. In another study conducted in the United States, it was found that 92 percent of children between the ages of 13 and 17 go online every day, 24 percent go online almost constantly, and 56 percent go online several times a day (Gomez,´ Harris, Barreiro, Isorna, & Rial, 2017). There is also an increase in use of social media and their access rate through mobile technologies (Gür, 2017). While the internet usage rate of children in Turkey is determined as 82.7%; it has been reported that 31.3% of children who use the Internet regularly also use social media and spend about 3 h a day on social media (TÜIK,˙ 2021). According to the same report, 64.4% of children use mobile phones/smartphones to access the internet. ICT have also

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D. Gür), [email protected] (Y.K. Türel).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104504

Received 9 November 2021; Received in revised form 2 February 2022; Accepted 18 March 2022

Available online 22 March 2022

0360-1315/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

D. Gür and Y.K. TürelComputers & Education 183 (2022) 104504

enriched the educational settings, which result in more widespread use of them by children and young people. Realizing their digital rights, this increase brings up an important issue for children to be protected from online risks (Chang et al., 2019; Livingstone & Helsper, 2010; Wang & Ngai, 2021).

Informal education first starts in the family environments for children; therefore, parents have more power to influence their children’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors than teachers in the school environments (Aktas¸ -Arnas, 2005; Hammer, Scheiter, & Stürmer, 2021). This may imply that children’s attitudes towards technology while protecting themselves from risks and threats are linked to parents’ attitudes and behaviors. There exist studies asserting that parents’ thoughts about children’s engagement with technology, their reactions to the changes and developments in technology, and their attitudes towards technology affect children’s online behaviors (Chandrima et al., 2020; Efe, Erdem, & Vural, 2021; Li, Garland, & Howard, 2014; Sela, Zach, Amichay-Hamburger, Mishali, & Omer, 2020; Wang et al., 2018; Yu & Shek, 2013; Alvarez,´ Torres, Rodríguez, Padilla, & Rodrigo, 2013). Therefore, parents should be cautious about appropriate and conscious use of technology and encourage their children to benefit from technological opportunities at the maximum level (Manap, 2020; Rodríguez-de-Dios, van Oosten, & Igartua, 2018). Indeed, according to Adigwe and van der Walt (2020), parents should support their children to develop digital skills that mediate possible digital risks and that are related to navigation in online settings and responsibilities for online safety. While Fu et al. (2020) emphasized parental intervention to prevent cellphone addiction in adolescents, Ho, Lwin, Yee, Sng, and Chen (2019) and Vale, Pereira, Gonçalves, and Matos (2018) revealed the importance of parental guidance and/or restrictive approach in protecting children from the negative effects of cyber-bullying. According to Sutherland, Facer, Furlong, and Furlong (2000), the situations surrounding children’s digital technology use include the opinions, attitudes, and motivations of children and family members towards the use of computers and the Internet at home. More specifically, Gomez´ et al. (2017) emphasized that adolescence is a critical period in which future habits and behaviors including responsible internet usage are formed and children’s use of the Internet, online risks, and parental behaviors for intervention and preventions need to be well understood.

Keya, Rahman, Nur, and Pasa (2020) conducted a qualitative study using ethnographic interviews with children and independent interviews with parents in Northwest Bangladesh. The results of the study revealed that problematic child-parent relationship, parental attitudes that lead children to become competitive in education, parental ignorance, child’s loneliness and anxiety, and permissive parenting are the predictive factors for digital game addiction. Similary, Vale et al. (2018) conducted a study on cyber-aggression in adolescence and reported that while adolescents in the non-violent group considered their parent’s approach as authoritarian, the others who demonstrate cyberbullying behaviors perceived their parents as laissez-faire and/or permissive. Rodríguez-de-Dios et al. (2018) also examined the effects of parental mediation (active and restrictive) on adolescents’ digital skills and found that positive attitudes towards ICT usage and technology anxiety have mediating effect on the association between online risks and opportunities. More specifically, while restrictive mediation results in less online risks, it also decreases the number of opportunities children may benefit. Also, studies revealed that parents’ positive attitudes towards ICT for educational purposes increase students’ learning and encourage students to conduct search in online settings (Kenar, 2012; McNaughton et al., 2008; Rodríguez-de-Dios et al., 2018). In addition, Hammer et al. (2021) stated that parents have a critical role on shaping children’s beliefs towards digital media. These results may implicate that parental attitudes and beliefs may lead students to use technology for educational purposes (Hammer et al., 2021). In addition, parents’ gender, occupation, educational level, and the level of technology usage influence their attitudes and perceptions towards technology as well as their children’s technology usage or the level of risky behaviors in online settings (Alvarez´ et al., 2013; Fu et al., 2020; Hollingworth, Mansaray, Allen, & Rose, 2011).

In line with the findings in the literature, it is critical to reveal parents’ attitudes towards children’s use of technology and their controls and restrictions in order to design measures and interventios in line with parent-school cooperation, which may lead students benefit from technology at the highes level while protecting them from possible risks. Although rapid technological changes and their effects on individuals’ lives are popular topic for researchers, the role and effects of family dynamics are still concealed (Carvalho, Francisco, & Relvas, 2015; Chang et al., 2019; Fu et al., 2020; Manap & Durmus¸, 2021). Specifically, in order to minimize the risks and their negative consequences and to maximize the opportunities provided by technology, it is important to investigate parents’ roles, attitudes, and behaviors. In order to fill the gap in the literature and shed a light for future research, this study aimed to investigate teenagers’ use of ICT from parents’ perspective and parents’ attitudes and behaviors towards ICT and their control mechanisms, re-strictions, and the precautions they take against possible risks in regard with the scope of digital parenting. Thus, the following research questions were proposed:

RQ 1. What are the ICT tools that teenagers use, their ICT usage frequencies and the activities they perform? RQ 2. What is the level of ICT usage among parents?

RQ 3.What are parents’ attitudes toward their children’s use of ICT?

RQ 4. Do parents’ demographic characteristics (age, education level, occupation, monthly income, parental status) make a signif-icant difference on their attitudes towards children’s ICT use?

RQ 5.Does parents’ ICT use make a significant difference on their children’s ICT use?

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2. Theoretical background and literature review

2.1. Possible risks in children’s use of ICT

In addition to opportunities including instant access to information and sharing information, advanced technologies also cause many problems arising from excessive or unconscious use of them (Cengizhan, 2005). When these problems are examined, the primary risks are accessing to illegal sites containing violence and sexuality easily or by chance, communication with unknown people, cyberbullying, and computer and Internet addiction (Altuna, Morentin, & Lareki, 2020; Kuss et al., 2013; Li et al., 2014; Martínez, Murgui, Garcia, & Garcia, 2019; Çelen, Çelik, & Seferoglu,˘ 2011). These risky usages have negative influcences on adolescents’ social, psychological, and academic development (Neverkovich et al., 2018).

Greenwood, Perrin, and Duggan (2016) reported that 90% of adolescents are active Facebook users and they log in to their account couple of times a day. As a feature, while Facebook allows its users to visit other people’s profiles and see their posts including pictures and videos and to send messages, Twitter and Instagram share users’ geographical locations with, maybe, strangers without users’ knowledge about it. This may result in exposure to some online risks (Fansher & Randa, 2019). In addition, in their study, Fansher and Randa (2019) stated that almost 36% of their adolescent participants reported sharing phone numbers and four percent shared ad-dresses in their social media accounts, which may unintentionally increase their exposure to potential criminals. Similar results were found by Dreßing, Bailer, Anders, Wagner, and Gallas (2014). According to their results, almost half of social media users had negative experiences in online settings. In addition, many websites sell products including tobacco products and alcohol over the Internet without requiring any information including the age of the recipient, which may lead to the promotion of illegal substance use among children and young people over the Internet (S¸ endag˘ & Odabas¸ı, 2006). Exposure of children to inappropriate content online is one of the most concerning risks. Violence, sexuality, sexist, racist or hateful posts and messages can negatively affect children and teenagers (Karaduman, 2019). This may result in sexual abuse, cyberbullying and ideological risks (Livingstone, Haddon, Gorzig,¨ & ve Olafsson, 2011). One of the biggest problems encountered in online environments is the internet addiction. Internet addiction has become a public health problem that cannot be ignored, affecting daily life and causing stress on social relationships (Cash, Rae, Steel, & Winkler, 2012; Douglas et al., 2008; Malak, Khalifeh, & Shuhaiber, 2017). Excessive internet use causes negative effects on teenagers such as social, psychological or academic difficulties (Neverkovich et al., 2018).

In eliminating or minimizing risks and enabling students to benefit from digital opportunities at the highest level, parental attitudes and support come to the fore (Adigwe & van der Walt, 2020; Carvalho et al., 2015; Gomez´ et al., 2017; Sela et al., 2020; Vale et al., 2018; Yaman et al., 2019). Therefore, it is critical to know how and for what purposes ICT are used in addition to knowing how much ICT are used (Çelen et al., 2011) and this requires parents to properly and effectively supervise this situation. In fact, parents’ role and guidance may prevent children from possible online risks and threats (Gomez´ et al., 2017), which brings up a concept of digital parenting. In the literature, digital parenting is used to define a set of competencies and roles that parents should have in order to control and direct their children’s technology use as well as to ensure their children to benefit from ICT while protecting them from potential risks and threats.

2.2. Digital parenting

Being a full-time job, parenting is defined as a belief system that includes attitude, perception, expectation, knowledge, value, and action orientation towards the care and socialization of children (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). However, today, parental responsibilities are changing in line with the needs of the digital age. In the digital age, parents try to resist or at least balance change while at the same time trying to embrace it in ways that meet the needs of their family (Livingstone & Blum-Ross, 2020). Due to the changes in parenting in the digital age, while parents encourage their children to use digital media for educational and social purposes, they also attempt to minimize digital media risks and control their possible negative consequences (Manap, 2020). Specifically, parental control is vital in preventing and reducing the risks and threats children may encounter in their online activities (Gomez´ et al., 2017; Keya et al., 2020; Nouwen & Zaman, 2018; Rosen, Cheever, & Carrier, 2008). This implies that parents need to perceive and use technology in an effective way, prepare their children for the requirements of the information age, and encourage them to acquire and properly use information (Uzuegbunam, 2019). Therefore, parents should have sufficient knowledge about their children’s internet use, the online risks and threats, and the safe use of the Internet (Livingstone & Helsper, 2010). Yurdakul, Donmez,¨ Yaman, & Odabas¸ı, (2013) classified the roles of digital parents into five categories (Digital literacy, Awareness, Control, Ethic, Innovation). Balkam (2014) also explained the way to become a good digital parent in seven steps while emphasizing healthy communication with children: “talk with your kids”, “educate yourself”, “use parental controls”, “set ground rules & apply sanctions”, “friend and follow, but don’t stalk”, “explore, share, and celebrate”, and “be a good digital role model”. Carvalho et al. (2015) also stated that satisfaction with the use of ICT creates different patterns at both individual and family levels (freedom for children and safety for parents), ensuring higher quality of parent-child relationships.

3. Methods

3.1. Research model

In this exploratory sequential mixed-method study, participants were provided a questionnaire and then, semi-structured in-terviews were conducted with parents to support quantitative findings in order to reach causal and comparative details that cannot be

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reached with quantitative data. The exploratory sequential mixed-method approach requires collection of quantitative data in the first stage and collection of qualitative data in the second stage to explain the findings of quantitative data in detail (Creswell, 2013).

3.2. Participants

The participant selection of the study was completed in two stages. In the first stage, 500 sixth and seventh grade students were identified. In the study, the fifth grade students were not included since they were just transferred to middle school from elementary school; therefore, they may not adopt the school environment yet. In addition, those students may not be sufficient to use IT since they do not take any courses related to IT previously in school. Also, eight grade students were excluded from the study. The rationale for this exclusion is that eight grade students have a critical exam at the end of the school year. According to the exam results, students are able to choose the high school they prefer to go; therefore, parents may not allow their children to engage with technological devices, which may cause a bias in the result of the current study. The sample of the study consists of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 14 randomly selected from secondary schools in a city center. In the researches, teenagers are defined as the age range of 12–19 (Çelik, 2015; Enthoven et al., 2021; Griffith, Larson, & Johnson, 2018). In this study, participants consist of sixth (N = 220) and seventh (N = 134) grade students and 46% of participants (N = 164) were female while 54% of them (N = 190) were male. In addition, two third of the participants were from public school (N = 237) and others were from private school (N = 117).

In this study, a total of 500 parents were reached through those students and only the parent who was more dominantly engaged in his/her child’s ICT use completed the questionnaire. The data was screened in terms of missing values and invariance in values. After the exclusion of those cases, a total of 354 cases were included in the analysis. After the exclusion of those cases, a total of 354 cases were included in the analysis. Among the participants while 48.9% of them were fathers (N = 173), 47.5% were mothers (N = 168) and 3.7% identified themselves as other (caregivers such as uncle, grandmother, elder brother, etc. N = 13). Out of 354, 13 parents from a randomly selected public school voluntarily agreed to participate in semi-structured interviews.

3.3. Data collection tools

A questionnaire was administered to the parents in order to collect data in the first stage of the study. The questionnaire included three sections: the personal information form, the children’s technology usage and parental restrictions form, and the parents’ atti-tudes towards children’s use of ICT scale. In addition to the questionnaire, a parent interview form was employed. Table 1 provides the information about the association between the data collection tools and the research questions.

3.3.1. Personal information form

The personal information form is the first section of the questionnaire and consists of 15 questions developed by the researchers. The questions were related to parents’ age, occupation, education level, monthly income, parental status, the technological tools the parents had, and their use of those tools.

3.3.2. Children’s use of technology and parental restrictions form

In this section, the parents were asked about the frequency of their children’s use of technological tools including computer, internet, smartphones, and tablets during summer and school time. In addition, eight questions were developed by the researchers to identify parents’ permissions for their children to use those tools.

3.3.3. Parent’s attitudes towards Children’s use of ICT scale (PACU-ICT)

The scale was developed by Türel and Gür (2019) and consists of 18 items with three factors: Educational use (seven items), control and limitations (six items), and negative effects (five items). The scale was designed to examine use of ICT for educational purposes, attitudes towards online risks, and parents’ restrictions, and the precautions against possible risks The reliability coefficient values are given in Table 2.

3.3.4. Parent interview form

After an extensive literature review and obtaining parents’ and students’ views, the researchers developed the parent interview form. It consisted of questions related to parents’ perspectives towards children’s use of ICT, their control mechanisms, restrictions, and guidance strategies. A pool of 12 questions were developed and reviewed by two experts from the field of instructional technology and two from educational sciences who are experienced in qualitative research. After revisions, the final version of the form with seven items was obtained.

Table 1

The research questions and the data collection tools.

Data collection toolsResearch questions

Personal information formRQ2, RQ4

Children’s technology usage and parental restrictions formRQ1, RQ3, RQ5

Parents’ attitude towards Children’s ICT scaleRQ3, RQ4, RQ5

Parent Interview FormRQ3

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Table 2

Cronbach’s alpha values.

Factors Paragraph 83 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 83, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	Cronbach’s alpha values Original study Paragraph 84 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 84, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	Cronbach’s alpha values Current study Paragraph 85 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 85, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
PACU-ICT Paragraph 86 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 86, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.77 Paragraph 87 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 87, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.79 Paragraph 88 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 88, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Educational use Paragraph 89 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 89, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.83 Paragraph 90 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 90, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.82 Paragraph 91 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 91, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Control and limitations Paragraph 92 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 92, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.80 Paragraph 93 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 93, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.83 Paragraph 94 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 94, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Negative effects Paragraph 95 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 95, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.79 Paragraph 96 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 96, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	.72 Paragraph 97 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 97, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.

3.4. Data analysis

After ensuring that the assumptions necessary for parametric tests were met, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted for each factor in the attitude scale. In addition, independent samples t-tests and ANOVA tests were performed in order to identify possible effects of parents’ demographic information (RQ4) and technology usage (RQ5) on their attitudes towards children’s use of ICT. Also, additional analyses were conducted in order to calculate the effect size and also Cohen’s d criteria were used for interpretation. The qualitative data was analyzed by using content analysis.

4. Findings

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In this section, the results are provided in the context of the research questions.

4.1. RQ1: Findings about children’s use of technological tools

According to the parents’ reports on their children’s use of technological tools during summer and school time, the frequencies were calculated (see Fig. 1).

According to the results, it is clearly seen that Internet was the most used technological tool during the school and summer time. Also, among the technological tools, the highest increase was observed in the use of Internet from school time to summer time. Today, Internet access becomes independent from time and place restrictions with mobile devices, which may be considered as an effect on this finding. Another critical finding is that the percentage of children who use the Internet more than 3 h increased from 10% to 34% in the summer time. The reason might be that during the school time children spend most of their time in schools and complete their homework. In addition, parents may have more restrictions in order to force their children to spend more time on their school duties.

4.2. RQ2: findings about parents’ use of technological tools

According to the results, while 83% of the parents had a computer and 73% had Internet access at home. In addition, the per­ centages for the computer and Internet usage were 71% and 78% for the parents, respectively. This difference might be due to easy access to Internet through mobile phones. Also, although 57% had an e-mail account, only 41% among them reported that they sent e-mails. Another finding is that the parents mainly used computers and Internet for one to 2 h per day. Overall, it is concluded that the participants were generally aware of computers and Internet as technological tools and used them. In addition, although 81% of the parents reported that they had information about safe Internet usage and informed their children about it, 40% did not know anything

Fig. 1. Children’s use of Technological Tools.

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about family protection programs. This might be considered as a critical deficiency for the parents to control their children’s use of ICT.

4.3. RQ 3: Findings on parental attitudes and behaviors

In the study, RQ3 aimed to examine parents’ attitudes and permissions about children’s use of ICT. According to the findings, parents’ overall attitudes towards technology was found to be at medium level (X = 3.63, SD = 0.37). Specifically, parents’ attitudes towards use of technologies for educational purposes (X = 3.78, SD = 0.63) and control mechanisms and restrictions (X = 3.98, SD = 0.54) were high and their attitudes towards the negative effects of technology was at medium level (X = 3.00, SD = 0.73). These results revealed that although the parents supported use of technological tools in education, they had concerns about negative consequences of ICT usage and, as a result, had restrictions for their children.

In terms of social media usage, although 31% of the parents reported that they had no permission for their children to have social media accounts or to visit social media sites, 42% reported their permission with supervision. In addition, according to the results, majority of the parents allowed their children to use instant messaging applications under their supervision (Fig. 2). On the other hand, more than half of the parents stated that they did not allow their children to share geographical location in online settings. The parents who allowed their children to use all type of ICT had generally 1-h time restriction for children. The time that the parents allow their children to play games by using IT during the day decreases when it comes to online games. In short, the parents generally allowed their children to use ICT by supervision but became nervous in situations in which children may share their personal information in online settings, and as a result, they had more restrictions for their children.

4.4. RQ 4: Findings on parental attitudes in terms of demographic information

This study also investigated the effects of parental use of ICT and their demographic information on parents’ attitudes towards ICT usage. According to the results, although the attitude scores of the parents whose child was enrolled in public schools were higher than the scores of the parents whose child was enrolled in private schools, this difference was not statistically significant (t (354) = 2.13, p > 0.05). Based on the ANOVA results, while parents’ occupation and education level had a statistically significant effect on parents’ attitudes, parental status, and parents’ age did not have any effect. Specifically, the parents who worked as government officials had significantly higher attitude scores comparing with the parents who were workers (F (5,348) = 2.34, p < 0.05, Cohen’s d = 0.30). In addition, the parents with elementary school degree were found to have higher negative attitudes scores towards technology comparing with the parents with undergraduate degree (F (4,349) = 3.23, p < 0.05, Cohen’s d = 0.45).

4.5. RQ5: findings on parental attitudes in terms of parental use of technology

In this study, the effect of parents’ use of ICT on their attitudes was examined. According to the results, higher negative attitude scores were observed for the parents who did not own a computer and have access to internet at home (t1(351) = 4.19, p < 0.01, Cohen’s d = 0.44) and for the parents who did not use technological tools (t2(352) = 3.61, p < 0.01, Cohen’s d = 0.31). In terms of effect size values, parents’ use of technology had a medium effect on their attitudes (Cohen, 1988).

4.6. Parent opinions on their Children’s use of ICT

In the interviews with 13 parents, the majority of the parents (%82) reported that they were glad that their children use technology and trust them in this regard. In their responses, the parents stated that ICT tools contributed to their children to do their homework,

Fig. 2. Parental permissions related to children’s use of technology.

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enriched their instructional activities by providing them repetition as much as they desired, and improved their children’s learning skills through conducting research. In addition, the parents stated that after completing their homework children had the opportunity to listen to music and play games in order to get rest. On the other hand, they raised their concerns about excessive use of technological tools and stated that they warned their children about it to protect their children’s health. More specifically, the parents seemed to be aware of the danger in excessive, unconscious, and uncontrolled use of technology and allowed children to use IT under their su-pervision to in order to minimize risks/threats and to increase effective use of them. Some parents shared their concerns about addiction since their children excessively used ICT by not following the rules. They also stated that they were concerned about their children’s use of social media. Specifically, they thought that their children may be exposed to inappropriate content or that they may experience physical and/or moral damage if they contact people they do not know. In order to prevent their children from those risks/ threats, they reported that they supervised their children while using ICT and had control mechanisms and restrictions (Table 3).

5. Discussion and conclusion

This study aimed to investigate parents’ attitudes and behaviors towards ICT and their control mechanisms, restrictions in use of ICT, and the precautions they take against possible risks. In the first stage of the study, the parents were asked to fill out a ques-tionnaire. In the second stage, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the parents. Qualitative data obtained through in-terviews were used to reveal detailed information (reasons of parents’ attitudes and behaviors, control mechanisms, limitations, perceived risks, etc.) that cannot be explained by quantitative data. According to the results, the parents had positive attitudes towards their children’s use of ICT for educational purposes. Similar result was found in the analysis of the interview data. In the interviews; parents stated that ICT usage supports children’s learning and offers many possibilities as children complete their homework and conduct research. In a study focusing on parents’ attitudes towards technology and its usage in classrooms, Kenar (2012) found positive parental attitude. In his study, parents believed that technology enriched lessons increase students’ academic achievement. Rodríguez-de-Dios et al. (2018) found similar results. In addition, in the study of McNaughton et al. (2008), parents of children using the augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices, which are defined as devices that provide new communication opportunities for individuals with complex communication needs, were interviewed. Based on their findings, parents stated that effective use of AAC increases students’ learning, provides opportunities for research, and helps teachers to organize the instruction. Thus, these findings revealed parents’ positive attitude towards ICT usage for educational purposes, which in turn influence their children’s use of technology for educational purposes. This is important for children to use technology for educational purposes and to benefit from digital opportunities (Livingstone & Blum-Ross, 2020). Because while parents impose some limitations to prevent existing risks, they can also prevent their children from benefiting from digital opportunities (Rodríguez-de-Dios et al., 2018). Technology, which offers opportunities in many fields such as entertainment and communication, also offers many opportunities for both teachers and learners in the field of education (Livingstone & Helsper, 2010). Providing easier and faster access to information resources, providing learning environments that will increase students’ interest and motivation and enable them to take an active role in the process, and gaining high-level thinking skills such as creativity, problem solving and critical thinking are some of these opportunities. In addition, studies show that children learn more effectively through technology (Cantabella, Lopez,´ Caballero, & Munoz,˜ 2018; Cho & Shen, 2013; García-Martín & García-Sanchez,´ 2018; Lacka, Wong, & Haddoud, 2021; Yürektürk & Cos¸kun, 2020). For this reason, the attitudes and behaviors of parents towards their children’s use of technology for educational purposes are very important for the educational process of their children. Another interesting finding is related to parents’ occupation and education level. Government officials comparing with workers and the parents with higher education degree comparing with the others had higher attitude scores. Similarly, Hollingworth et al. (2011) compared middle-class parents and working-class parents living in houses with different tech-nological tools (phone, tablet, computer etc.) and using technology intensively in their professional lives. Accordingly, it was deter-mined that middle-class parents considered their children’s learning with technology more positively and thought that technology contributed to their children to grow up as learners suitable for the knowledge economy. In the study of Alvarez´ et al. (2013), it was determined that urban families compared to families in rural areas and families with higher education compared to families with low education had higher attitudes. These results support the findings of this study. Despite the significant differences in parents’ attitudes

Table 3

Parents’ control mechanism and restrictions.

	f Paragraph 132 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 132, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Control mechanisms Paragraph 133 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 133, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	9 Paragraph 134 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 134, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Using ICT with parent Paragraph 135 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 135, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Following up children’s messages with friends Paragraph 136 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 136, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	6 Paragraph 137 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 137, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Checking up Internet history Paragraph 138 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 138, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	4 Paragraph 139 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 139, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Using parent protection plans Paragraph 140 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 140, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	2 Paragraph 141 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 141, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Restrictions Paragraph 142 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 142, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	11 Paragraph 143 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 143, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Time restriction Paragraph 144 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 144, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Permission for educational purpose Paragraph 145 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 145, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	3 Paragraph 146 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 146, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
No permission to social media Paragraph 147 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 147, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	8 Paragraph 148 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 148, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
No permission for sharing photos and personal information Paragraph 149 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 149, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	8 Paragraph 150 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 150, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
Permission after completing homework Paragraph 151 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 151, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	10 Paragraph 152 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 152, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.
As a reward for obtained high grades from exams Paragraph 153 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 153, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.	4 Paragraph 154 0 No paragraph-level conversations. Start one. Paragraph 154, Sentence 1 0 No sentence-level conversations. Start one.