The Relationship between Parents’ Self-perceived Family Communication Patterns and their Adolescents’ Social Networking Usage in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between parents’ self- perceived family communication patterns and their adolescents’ self-reported social networking usage, to examine the relationship between parents’ self-perceived family communication patterns and their adolescents’ self-reported parental control, to examine the relationship between adolescents’ self-reported parental control and their social networking usage in Nakhon Ratchasima province. The current study will provide in- depth significant understanding of family dynamics and their susceptibility to be influenced by extraneous factors such as social setting, peer pressure as well as its strength as a primary setting for socialization (Santos, 2009). Two hundred fifty adolescents and their parents participated in this survey. The samples were being selected by using purposive sampling from twenty six districts in Korat province and clustered from each district, and the questionnaires were distributed directly to respondents by using convenience sampling. To test the three hypotheses, the mean, percentage, Chi- Square, Multiple Regression were employed all variables with the 0.05 significance level. The findings revealed that the adolescents who interacted in the laissez-fare family pattern as perceived by their parents did not have a significant active or very active social networking usage. It was also evident that there was no association between the adolescents who interacted in the protective family communication pattern as perceived by their parents and adolescents’ social networking usage. Moreover, majority of those who interacted in the pluralistic family communication pattern had social networking usage for 10 to 20 hours per week while 35.7% had usage for less than 10 hours per week. The researcher also found that there was no significant association between adolescents who interacted in the consensual family communication pattern as perceived by their parents and social networking usage. The study also found out that there is no relationship communication patterns and the network usage thus communication patterns do not explain the networking usage. In conclusion, this communication pattern was not significant among the “averagely active” social networking usage.