Parents Views And Rules About Technology: As Told By Their Middle School Children in Hungary and India

Abstract

To help us explore parental attitudes towards and usage of technology, we interviewed students ages 10-15 in Hungary and India in focus groups regarding their technology use. This paper focuses on the preliminary results of these students’ perceptions of parental limitations on their technology use. Parents in both countries limited children’s technology use; however, there were differences in the way these limitations were defined and expressed among our participants. The students from Hungary stated that in many situations their parents have a negative attitude toward technology, however, they prescribed fewer rules and gave more freedom to their children to use the technology items discussed. In India, the students indicated that their parents thought technology was useful, a helpful tool, and spent time using technology with their children and in front of their children. Yet the Indian parents limited their children’s use of technology more than the Hungarian parents