Adolescents and the Internet: Reactions of Parents

Today, most of social communications are transferred into the virtual environment, which opens new prospects, and, at the same time, carries more and more risks that change adolescents' behavior. Our study is devoted to the problem of how parents conceive risks that an adolescent faces due to his behavior on the Internet. An important goal of this research was to identify the parental behavioristic characteristics in the context of adolescents' changing behavior presumably due to the active use of the Internet. The theoretical overview demonstrates the dynamics of social interaction shift into the online media and the variety of its risks for adolescents. We have methodized the existing research works and we have singled out the risks of the Internet for modern youth, such as forming of new interaction culture, active role of interpersonal relations, and development of public opinion. We have also summed up the predictors of such risks as psycho-physiological, socio-psychological and psychological-pedagogical. The empirical part of research has been carried out on a sample group of parents (n = 367) in territories that differ in terms of infrastructure development and other significant indicators. We have used the author's method of research of behavior in the Internet, as well as the medical-psychological indices, social behavior, behavior in public places, studying excellency, the level of family welfare, etc. The method show that the key risk indicator from the point of view of the parents, was children's hiding the games and communications on the Internet, decreasing of productive activity, inappropriate sexual behavior, difficulties with self-reflection of the day. The factor analysis of parents' responses made it possible to identify 3 groups of factors that determine the difficulties in parental control. The first factor (25% share of total dispersion) included indicators signaling about decrease in the values-based attitude to the rules, as well as safety standards; potential signs of chronic illnesses, emotional ill-being. The second factor (20%) included indicators characterizing a sufficiently high adolescent victimhood and, so far, supposedly, the formation of a peer environment much more referential in comparison with the parent (home) environment. The third factor (15%) included indicators typical for the initial period of gambling addiction. Therefore, parental risk-related competence at the contact with risks of the Internet is quite low, while the behavior of adolescents on the Internet is not so much a communication system as a system of joint life-sustaining activity, which is an independent socio-psychological phenomenon.

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