Consumer reverse socialization of parents and roles of children in the context of technology and internet

Socialization defined as the process of learning the culture of the society who's lives in it. Consumer socialization is a process of acquisition of the abilities related to marketplace activities, and it starts from birth and continues a lifetime. In consumer socialization, the focus is usually children, and it is accepted that the individual's identity formed when someone reached adulthood period. While traditional consumer socialization continues this direction, emerging societal changes point out the opposite direction. 'Reverse' or 'Resocialization' of consumers does not carry negative meanings; besides, they are used to indicate directional change. This research aims to understand consumer reverse socialization and identify children's roles in this process in the context of technology and the Internet. Qualitative and quantitative methods applied in this research. After the literature review, two scales adapted, and one scale formed by the researcher and the supervisor considering previous qualitative research results. Participants reached by a convenience sampling method. Due to the pandemic, questionnaires were sent via online methods and collected in the same way. The only condition for participation was to have at least one child. Considering previous researches has no age classification, an exploratory approach was taken and the age of participation is not restricted. Five hundred eighty-six participants reached and 262 participants excluded from the research model due to mixed characteristics result in cluster analysis. The results showed that three children's roles identified: the teacher, the broker, and the expert, and according to these roles K-means cluster analysis applied. After clustering analysis, participants, who showed a dominant children's role in their cluster, were subjected to multinominal logistic regression. Predictor variables of the model are parental style, digital literacy, and family information of the sample. According to multinominal logistic regression, the increase in the responsiveness level of parents, and the age of the oldest child causes the increase in the odds of being all children role categories. The education level of participants is a significant predictor for the teacher and the broker role. Only the broker role of the children showed differences in age groups.