Online Time Via Mobile Devices and Computers and Communication with Parents Among Adolescents In Rural China: Does Left-behind Status Matter?

Background and Purpose:

In China, regional inequality has profoundly transformed rural family structures. Socio-economic resources are increasingly concentrated in urban areas, driving large-scale population migration. Many adolescents in rural China are “left-behind”, whose parent(s) migrate to cities for employment opportunities. Such physical separation hinders these adolescents’ communication with parents, while studies also documented problematic parent-child interactions in rural non-left-behind families.

Meanwhile, recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in Internet use among adolescents in rural China. According to a national report (CNNIC, 2023), over 95% of rural adolescents have access to the Internet; regarding main web devices, around 60% own mobile phones, and 25% use desktop computers. Internet use may promote online communication with migrant parents among left-behind adolescents, but impair in-person communication with parents among non-left-behind adolescents.

However, research on Chinese rural adolescents’ Internet use and their communication with parents is scarce, and the few existing studies are qualitative inquiries focusing on left-behind adolescents and their use of mobile devices. Therefore, this quantitative study aims to investigate the associations between online time via mobile devices and computers and parent-child communication among adolescents in rural China, and to compare these associations between left-behind and non-left-behind adolescents.

Methods:

This study used cross-sectional data from 2020 and 2022 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), a large-scale nationally-representative survey. The sample comprised 997 rural adolescents aged 10-15 from intact families. Parent-child communication was measured by the monthly frequency of adolescents’ quarrels and talks with their parents, which were categorized into four levels respectively. Online time was measured as daily hours adolescents spent online using mobile devices and computers, which were categorized into three groups respectively. Left-behind status depended on whether adolescents had lived with their parents for more than 6 months over the past 12 months. Ordinal logistic regressions were constructed on quarrels and talks respectively via Stata 14.1.

Results:

Compared with no use of mobile devices, spending 2 or more hours online using mobile devices per day was associated with higher odds of quarrels (OR = 2.16, CI [1.51, 3.09], p < .001) and lower odds of talks (OR = 0.69, CI [0.50, 0.95], p = .022) with parents among adolescents in rural China. In contrast, computer hours were not significantly associated with either outcome. Moreover, the moderating effects of left-behind status were not significant. The above associations between online time and communication with parents did not differ between left-behind and non-left-behind adolescents.

Conclusions and Implications:

Mobile device time played a more influential role in parent-child communication than computer time, which may be attributed to different features and affordances of these devices. The similar result between left-behind and non-left-behind adolescents does not imply that left-behind status is unimportant; rather, it may reflect specific mechanisms in different household contexts. Social services should consider the types of web devices and the dynamics of caregiving structures, particularly excessive use of mobile devices and parent-child bilateral services. At a broader level, for left-behind adolescents, policies should aim to facilitate family co-residence, given technology is a double-edged sword.