The influence of parental factors on children’s receptiveness towards mobile phone location disclosure services

an article by Hee Jhee Jiow and Julian Lin (National University of Singapore) published in First Monday Volume 18 Number 1 (January 2013)

Abstract

A key ingredient of successful parenting is parental knowledge of their children’s whereabouts. The availability of, and easy access to, modern technology such as mobile phone location disclosure (MPLD) services has made it even easier for parents to locate their children by tracking their whereabouts.

This study explored parental factors and children’s receptiveness towards MPLD services and found that children’s trust in their parents, optimal parental bonding, monitoring and solicitation, and children’s general disclosure patterns are positively correlated to children’s receptiveness towards MPLD, but parental invasiveness was found to be negatively correlated.

The study found that in predicting children's MPLD attitudes:

1. general disclosure habit of children is the best predictor; and,
2. children’s perception of parental factors are better indicators than parents’ perception.

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