Parental internet activity and communication through the new media - literature review

Abstract

Global economic and social transformations, as well as technological progress, require people to modify used methods of communication. Traditional forms of information exchange have given way to the so-called new media enabling trouble-free communication using the Internet. These changes also affected family life. Digitization, appearing at each stage of the functioning of the family system, is to some extent based on remote communication processes, allowing its individual members to carry out their development tasks. According to the theory of social learning, parents constitute the basic pattern of behavior that children derive from and reproduce. Therefore, parental functioning in the virtual world is important for the later adaptive use of the Web by representatives of the younger generation. In addition, online communication acts as a source of information and a normalizer of social relations, fosters building interpersonal competencies and identity, and modifies the way of fulfilling the parental role. Based on the above-mentioned aspects, this article characterizes the process of digitization of motherhood and fatherhood, showing the basic ways and consequences of using the Internet by parents, and systematizing the knowledge about communication functions in the context of mothers and fathers online activity.