Objective: This study aimed to examine the effects of maternal monitoring, shared activities with children, maternal education-oriented behavior, and allowing children to own smart-phones on smart media usage patterns based on smart-phone usage time and purposes among elementary school children.
Methods: The participants were 1,315 second-grade elementary school children from the 9th wave of PSKC. Latent profile analysis and the three-step estimation approach were used to examine the determinants of the latent profile and the effects of maternal parenting on the profile.
Results: Four latent profiles were identified: ‘High-level usage & Entertaining oriented, ‘Moderate-level usage & Social/entertaining oriented, ‘Moderate-level usage & Learning oriented, and ‘Low-level usage. Additionally, results showed that each profile can be predicted by maternal monitoring, education-oriented behavior, and permitting children to own smart-phones.
Conclusion/Implications: Our outcomes suggested that it would be necessary to understand the smart media usage patterns of elementary school children, considering both the amount of time spent with smart media and purposes of
uses. Further, it is helpful for mothers to monitor children’s daily activities, support their educational activities, and take the role of gatekeeper for smart media as a way of appropriate guidance for their children s use of smart media.