Intentions for Mothers’ Involvement in Social Media Use with their Children

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In spite of the remarkable importance of the Internet and social media to society at large and children in particular, the increasing concern about social media excesses remain issues of academic discourse. Premised on this, a study was undertaken with Nigerian mothers. The aim was to ascertain the rationale for mothers’ involvement in social media use with their children specifically on Facebook, X, and Instagram. Instrument of data collection was an online questionnaire adopted from Ryan, Chester and Xenos (2014) to obtain data from a purposively selected sample of 384 mothers, who served as respondents. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 application. Result indicates a significant relationship in social media use between mothers and children, and that mothers predominantly use WhatsApp platform for several purposes and intentions. Findings further indicate mothers’ preference of conversation pattern to conformity pattern of interaction with their children. The study concludes that social media serve as platform that sustains the bond between mothers and their children. It however, recommends moderate use of social media that is briskly supplanting physical mother-child interaction.