In my master thesis I studied the effect of different factors on the amount of time preschool children spend in front of screen-based devices and their skills in using them. The aim of the research was to find out how parents' attitudes, their mediation strategies, the amount of time parents spend in front of screen-based devices and demographic variables (child's age, child's gender, parents' education, number of devices in the household) are associated with children's daily use of screen-based devices and their skills in using them. The sample consisted of 217 parents of preschool children aged three to six years who completed a questionnaire. The results showed that parents' attitudes towards their child's use of devices are related to some mediation strategies, namely co-use, active mediation and technical restrictions, and to the amount of time the child spends in front of screen-based devices during the weekend. The amount of time the child spends in front of screen-based devices during the week is associated with all parental mediation strategies except the monitoring strategy. The amount of time a child spends in front of screens during the weekend is associated with the co-use strategy and active mediation, but not with the monitoring strategy, restrictive mediation and technical restrictions. In addition, the amount of time a child spends in front of screen devices is associated with the child's age, the parent's education and the amount of time the parent spends in front of screen devices. Child skills in using screen-based devices, in turn, are associated with all parental mediation strategies except the monitoring strategy.
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