Connected parents, connected children: the relationship of smartphone, social media, and AI with parenting and children’s tech consumption in Türkiye

The objective of this study is to investigate parental utilization of smartphones, engagement with social media, and adoption of artificial intelligence tools in child-rearing practices, alongside analyzing their children’s technology consumption habits. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the downtown area of an eastern Turkish city. Data collection utilized various forms, including a demographic findings form, the parents’ smartphone attitudes form, parents’ use of social media and knowledge of artificial intelligence form, parents’ use of digital tools in childcare form, children’s smartphone use form, and the Smartphone Addiction Scale. The study revealed that smartphone usage led to insomnia at night, as well as neck and hand-wrist pain. Parents utilizing artificial intelligence applications such as Google Bard/Gemini and ChatGPT demonstrated a higher potential for addiction. Those who allowed their infants to watch content on their smartphones between the first and sixth months of life showed a greater potential for addiction, with such content often utilized to soothe the baby during feeding. It was determined that parents who did not pay attention to the use of smartphones in the presence of their children and parents of children who reacted violently when the phone was taken away had higher phone addiction scores. The results suggest that parents who extensively utilize social media and artificial intelligence applications tend to integrate these tools into childcare practices. Research findings indicate that the primary reason parents use smartphones is to engage in social media activities. Parents who exhibited uncontrollable smartphone usage were observed to experience symptoms such as insomnia, as well as neck and wrist pain. Observations revealed that parents frequently relied on social media platforms and artificial intelligence tools for child-rearing tasks. Research findings suggest that newborn infants (aged 0–1 month) are exposed to smartphones by their parents. It was concluded that children of parents with high smartphone addiction tend to have longer durations of smartphone usage.