Healthy Digital Habits in Parents of Infants

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PROJECT SUMMARY Healthy parent-child interactions are critical for children’s well-being and development. In infancy, parent sensitivity (e.g., responsiveness) is linked to parent-infant attachment security and emotional co-regulation, which lay the foundation for mental health, academic performance, and relationship quality over time. Therefore, promoting high-quality parent-infant interactions has the potential to improve children’s healthy habits across their life. The caregiving environment has changed as parents have integrated smartphones into their lives. The vast majority of adults own a smartphone, and many report device use in the presence of their children (e.g., during playtime, mealtime, bedtime). Additionally, parent phone use has been negatively associated with parent-child interactions and responsiveness; phone use is likely also indirectly associated with parent responsiveness via impacts on parent sleep, mood, and stress. With the prevalence of parent phone use and potential for this phone use to impact parenting, parent-child relationships, and infant and child health and well-being, interventions are needed to promote healthy digital habits in parents. The proposed study will provide the information necessary to understand the phone use of parents of infants and parent perspectives on strategies to develop healthier digital habits. This will support the development of data- and parent-informed programming to assist parents of infants in order to foster healthy caregiving for infants. This will be accomplished through a longitudinal, mixed method study of 250 parents of infants. The study will consist of three waves: Wave 1 where parents complete a baseline survey and then 8 consecutive days of nightly surveys (while their phone use is also tracked via an app); Wave 2 where parents complete a follow-up survey and a subsample complete interviews; and Wave 3 where we develop programming and then a subsample of parents participate in focus groups to provide feedback on the programming. Specific aims include: (Aim 1) (a) To identify profiles of parent phone use using mobile device-based sensing and (b) to examine associations with parent mental health; (Aim 2) to examine parents’ perceptions of (a) their phone use, (b) potential impacts on themselves and their infant, and (c) strategies for and barriers to developing healthier digital habits; (Aim 3) to develop feasible and parent-accepted community programming for parents of infants on healthy phone habits, based on the information obtained in Aims 1 and 2. We target families of infants due to the need to begin healthy habits early in life. Ultimately, we will use the results from this research to support future trials of the program and its effectiveness at creating healthier phone habits in parents and healthy habits in children. If successful, this research will lead to a program that will be implemented in the community, which has the potential to build healthier parent-child relationships and healthier child development.