Parental Overload and the Offer of Digital Media to Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of Children’s Increase in Usage Time and Introduction of a New Device

Does parental overload during COVID-19 help to explain how much media parents offer to their 0- to 3-year-old children? In this chapter, we analyze both the increase in the child’s usage time and the introduction of a new digital device into the child’s routine in relation to parental overload (a proxy for symptoms of common mental disorders and loss of support). Children who increased their media usage time during the pandemic were older and had mothers and fathers with worse mental health scores and greater loss of social support. Thus, parental overload during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with increased time of digital media use (but not the introduction of a new device) among children as young as 3 years old.