Adolescent media use, parent involvement and health outcomes: a latent class analysis approach

Media use among early adolescents is nearly ubiquitous and has been associated with important health outcomes such as physical activity, sleep and problematic internet use (PIU). Parent involvement has been recommended as a prevention strategy; it remains unclear how it is associated with media use and health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop profiles of media use, parent involvement and health outcomes among adolescents. Early adolescents were recruited to a cross-sectional online survey using the Qualtrics platform and panels. Media use measures included ownership and bedroom use of devices, social media platforms and video games. Parent media involvement assessed media rules and role-modeling. Health measures included physical activity, sleep and PIU. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify distinct profile groups across these three areas. The 1155 participants had a mean age of 13.6 years (SD = 1.1), of whom 49.7% were female, 73.7% were White and 61.1% had parent education with a college degree. We found that most participants owned personal media devices, including smartphones (81.4%), computers (64.6%) and video game systems (58.9%). The LCA identified three distinct profile groups: (1) Active Autonomous Media Users, (2) Young Low-Tech Sleepers and (3) Risky Regulated Media Users. Findings support that media use patterns vary across adolescents, suggesting different education and prevention approaches may be needed. Targeting educational messages to different media profiles may be an effective strategy to optimize productive media use and health.