I came across three articles  from the Journal Of Adolescence and a chapter from the book “Child and Adolescent Mental Health” (citations at the bottom of this post) studying the concept of media usage vis-a-vis the internet, the interaction of young adolescence (the digital natives) with the digital medium, the effect this has on the evolution of their sense of self and identity and more importantly – the significant role that parents play in facilitating the creation of a healthy relationship of a child with the digital medium; Proactive parents who are engaged in monitoring their child’s media use and access, can effectuate an environment for adolescents to acquire and negotiate critical thinking skills required in the digital age.

These articles are particularly interesting because they bring to light the need for better public-private-participation at the policy level; i.e. the need for private companies to collaborate with government agencies to create policy frameworks which address how children interact with digital media and the processes to afford protection to this vulnerable population group.

Padilla-Walker, L. M., & Coyne, S. M. (2011). “Turn that thing off!” parent and adolescent predictors of proactive media monitoring. Journal of Adolescence,34(4), 705-715.

Holtz, P., & Appel, M. (2011). Internet use and video gaming predict problem behavior in early adolescence. Journal of Adolescence, 34(1), 49-58.

Keijsers, L., & Laird, R. (2010). Introduction to special issue, Careful conversations: Adolescents managing their parents’ access to information.Journal of Adolescence, 33(2), 255-259.

Nayar, U. S., Hagen, I., Nayar, P., & Jacobsen, D. Y. (2012). Mental Health for the Media Generation: Balancing Coping and Riskiness. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, SAGE, 96-111.