MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

TRANSFORMATION OF THE MEDIA GARDEN
extent to which their parents let them use the media and on parents´
efforts talk to them about the media.
Table1
Age structure of responding children
Age Girls Boys
6 – 8 80 70
9 - 11 69 82
12 - 15 74 81
Total 223 233
Source: own processing
We have discovered that 65.4 % of children said that they negotiate with
parents on how long they can work on computer, 56.3 % on how long
they can watch television and 40% on how long they can play computer
games. Agreeing on time spent on each media activity was clearly linked
to the age of children. Older children seldom said that their parents limit
the time, while younger children were more controlled by their parents.
The children´s responses mirrored the data for the sample of parents. The
same trend could be seen regarding media content where the youngest
age category mentioned the highest degree of control on the parents´
side; with higher age most children said that they do not discuss with
their parents the media content regardless of the media device. Overall,
more than half of the children said that they discuss allowed computer
activities and TV programs. There was a smaller share of those who had
to agree with parents on the types of electronic games (32.7%).
When comparing parents´ and children´s responses it was revealed
that mothers interfere the most in the children´s activities in all media
devices – watching TV, using the computer and playing electronic games.
In comparison with mothers, fathers´ views of the issue mirrored the
children´s view more. Children reported much lower monitoring by
parents, especially concerning the content. The biggest difference could
be observed in the parental control of the content of computer games
(Table 2). Parents were thus more convinced that they decide on the
media devices their children can use than their children really reported.
131