Abstract
Adolescents participated in qualitative interviews (N = 40) and permitted researchers to check their cell phone histories (N = 35) for the content and frequency of text and call communications with parents. Communications focused predominantly on day-to-day “managerial” aspects of parent–child relationships but also facilitated emotional connections between adolescents and parents. Adolescents preferred to use texts to engage in managerial communications and calls to connect emotionally, but logistical constraints resulted in most cell phone communications between adolescents and parents involving calls. Participants communicated more with mothers than fathers, regardless of communication content or medium. This was true regardless of family structure, although gender-of-parent differences were accentuated for adolescents in mother-only households. This pattern was explained by both greater maternal accessibility and adolescent preferences for communication with mothers. Communications with fathers tended to occur either when mothers were not available or when the communication was focused on a highly specific set of stereotypically masculine content areas.
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Acknowledgements
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent/assent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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A. C. F. and B. L. B. designed the study. A. C. F. supervised data collection, developed the coding protocol, coded data, analyzed data, and wrote the literature review and discussion. M. B. G.: developed the coding protocol, coded data, analyzed data, and wrote the methods and results. All three authors participated in preparation of revised versions of the manuscript.
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This manuscript has not been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. All authors have no potential conflict of interest pertaining to this Journal of Child and Family Studies submission.
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Fletcher, A.C., Benito-Gomez, M. & Blair, B.L. Adolescent Cell Phone Communications with Mothers and Fathers: Content, Patterns, and Preferences. J Child Fam Stud 27, 2125–2137 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1054-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1054-z