Does Parental Mediation of Media Influence Child Outcomes? A Meta-Analysis on Media Time, Aggression, Substance Use, and Sexual Behavior

The current study examined how parental mediation of media (restrictive mediation, active mediation, and coviewing) influenced child outcomes. Three meta-analyses, 1 for each type of mediation, were conducted on a total of 57 studies. Each analysis assessed the effectiveness of parental mediation on 4 pertinent child outcomes: media use, aggression, substance use, and sexual behavior. The overall results indicated small, but significant relationships between child outcomes and restrictive mediation (r(+) = -.06), and coviewing (r(+) = .09). Overall active mediation was nonsignificant, though active mediation was individually related to lower levels of aggression (r(+) = -.08), sexual behavior (r(+) = -.06), and substance use (r(+) = -.11). This analysis revealed that parents may have the ability to mitigate some of the adverse effects of the media by using certain mediation strategies. Overall, a cooperative effort from the communication and parenting fields is necessary for a comprehensive analysis of parental mediation as well as a disentanglement of the various parental mediation measures.