Parental Influence on Children’s Media Use in South Korea: National Population-Based Study

Background: To better understand the effects of media use on children, it is essential to examine the various factors influencing the media use of digital native children. In the situational context, parental media usage, parents’ attitudes toward media, and parenting styles have all been identified as significant factors influencing children’s media use. This study focuses on the key factors and examines these relationships in greater depth, drawing on existing research to understand their impact on the media usage patterns of digital native children. Objective: This study examines parental influences related to young children’s media use in Korea over a 3-year period (2022‐2024) using independent, nationally representative cohorts. Methods: Using multigroup structural equation modeling, we analyzed data from 3 independent parent–reported cohorts (for 2022, n=1058; for 2023, n=1020; for 2024, n=1020) to investigate how parental media habits, attitudes, and distinct parenting styles predict children’s daytime and nighttime media consumption. Results: The online survey results revealed that parental media time, particularly for mothers, consistently correlated with higher levels of children’s daytime media use (β=.002-.003). Positive parental attitudes toward media increased children’s daytime media use (β=.028-.102), whereas negative attitudes had a limited effect (β=−.069-.140). Among the 7 parenting styles, positive parenting consistently reduced children’s daytime media use in 2022 and 2023 (β=−.228 for 2022, β=−.215 for 2023), but harsh punishment emerged as the strongest factor in daytime media use in 2024 (β=−.078 for 2022, β=−.090 for 2023, and β=−.072 for 2024). Notably, parenting styles showed no significant effect on children’s nighttime media use throughout the study, suggesting that parental influence may be more effective during daytime hours. Conclusions: This analysis extends existing research by differentiating media use patterns across time periods and highlights the evolving influence of parenting styles. These findings have implications for the development of targeted parental guidelines for managing young children’s media exposure, especially as digital media continues to become a pervasive part of daily life.