Parents’ views about teens and tech: parents have more to gain from a trust-based digital mindset versus one driven by fear

Weinstein, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2200-6617, Przybylski, A. and Legate, N. (2026) Parents’ views about teens and tech: parents have more to gain from a trust-based digital mindset versus one driven by fear. Technolog, Mind, and Behavior. ISSN 2689-0208 (In Press)

Abstract/Summary

Parents are increasingly exposed to, and internalize, fear-based messages urging them to keep their kids safe from the dangers of digital technology use. However, research has yet to conceptually and empirically understand parents’ beliefs about the digital world and their correlates. The present research introduces and evaluates two theoretically grounded digital parenting mindsets: one based in fear, reflecting a focus on technology as threat, and one based in trust, reflecting confidence in adolescents’ capacity to learn and self-regulate with support and experience. Across three preregistered and two validation studies, we developed brief measures of both mindsets and examined their correlates across multiple samples. Study 1 surveyed parents of adolescents in four countries to establish scale structure and demographic distribution. Study 2 situated both mindsets within a broad nomological network including digital parenting practices, general parenting styles, parental stress, personality, and previous child behavior. Study 3 used a large (N = 4000 individuals) parent-adolescent dyadic sample to test whether parenting mindsets mapped onto adolescents’ own reports of trust, voice, self-regulation, concealment, and digital engagement. A fear-based mindset showed few apparent benefits and consistent links with more controlling digital parenting practices known to undermine child well-being and greater parental stress. By contrast, a trust-based mindset was consistently associated with autonomy-supportive digital parenting and positive adolescent outcomes, including feeling trusted, having a voice, and greater self-regulation. These findings suggest that parenting grounded in trust rather than fear may better support adolescent development and may, counterintuitively, also promote safer engagement in the digital age.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/130119
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Publisher	APA Journals
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