The relationship between media mediation roles of parents and preschoolers digital play addiction tendency

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the media mediation roles of parents and their pre-school child's digital play addiction tendency. The universe of the research consists of all parents who live in Turkey. The universe of the research consists of all parents who have children in preschool period, the target population of the study consist of all parents with kids at ages of 3-6. The data were collected in the Demographic Information Form prepared by the researcher, Early Childhood Parental Media Mediation Scale developed by Şen et al. (2019) and Digital Game Addiction Scale prepared by Budak (2020) tools were collected online. Data analysis were done with Pearson Correlation test, One Way Anova test and t-test. According to the findings, there is a significant relationship between children's digital play addiction tendency and parent media mediation roles, demographic variables, parent's technology usage habits and child's technology usage habits. There is a negative significant relationship between the child's addiction tendency and all other roles (active supportive, restrictive supportive, active limiting, restrictive limiting, active interpreter) except the restrictive blocker role. From the parent's technology usage habits; as the duration of watching TV, using social media, playing digital games and playing digital games with the child increases, the child's addiction tendency increases. As the child's technology usage habits increase, the tendency for play addiction increases as the duration of using smart phones and other devices (Tablet, computer, game console) increases. In addition, the child has own technological tool increases the tendency to addiction. Children who watch YouTube videos are more likely to be addicted to digital game than children who watch TV kids channels. Although the scores of parents restrictive blocker behavior towards girls and boys are statistically close, it has been revealed that girls are more restrictive blocker. Finally, there is no significant relationship between educational status and media mediation roles. The tendency of the child to be addicted to digital games is less in the children of the parents who have a master's degree/doctorate degree.