Digital natives and parental surveillance: A qualitative study of parenting practices and child surveillance technology

Sammanfattning: The thesis sets out to explore how surveillance technology is affecting modern parental practices. Based on 12 in-depth interviews with parents of children aged 10-17, technological surveillance and parenting are studied. The data is analyzed though a combination of both preexisting concepts of Baumrind on child development and independent constructs. The concept of remote parenting has been derived from the data collected in this study and refers to parental intervention on the child’s behalf that occurs from a distance. The results of the study are presented in the form of four categories of parenting styles. The findings of this study suggest that technological surveillance is more likely to be present when there are lower levels of trust in the relationship. Intense technological surveillance has been shown to be more common in parents with younger children, suggesting increased use of remote parenting methods in recent years.