Literature Review: Explicit Content & Parental Guidance Impact

This literature review examines the exposure of underage children to explicit content and the impact of missing parental guidance. It analyzes secondary data from books, peer-reviewed journals, and scholarly articles, along with online interviews and surveys. The review highlights the increasing access children have to diversified media, including mobile phones, televisions, and computers, and the associated risks of exposure to inappropriate content. It also discusses the lack of parental rules and monitoring regarding children's social media use and internet activity. The review further explores the effects of alcohol advertising on underage children and the failure of marketers to implement age-restriction measures. While limited by its focus on easily accessible content and the generalizability of parent interviews, the review emphasizes the importance of active mediation, parental guidance, and evidence-based guidelines for social media and internet usage to protect children from the harmful effects of explicit content.

Institutional Affiliation(S)
Psychology
[Document subtitle]
Student Name
[Date]

P a g e | 1
Table of Contents
1
Introduction...............................................................................................................................2
2 Methods used..........................................................................................................................2
3 Main findings/Conclusion.......................................................................................................2
4 Limitation................................................................................................................................4
5 Summary Remarks..................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................6

P a g e | 2
1 Introduction
It is evident that parents do influence children the most, however, it is also evident that
children’s genetic makeup also affects their psychological characteristics along with
influences through the way they are been treated by parents. The main aim of this literature
review report is to provide its readers with recent trend and research related to exposure of
underaged children to explicit content and missing of parental guidance. This report will not
only document explicit content that remains exposed to underaged children and causes of
missing guidance, but also provide with facts and tools that can bring forward the
significance of addressing this topic to its readers.
2 Methods used
To get an insight about present condition of underaged children exposure to explicit content
and literature related to missing parental guidance, secondary sources of data will be analyzed
and reviewed. The secondary sources include books, peer-reviewed journals along with other
scholarly articles. The sources will help in finding current scenario along with further
limitations of the research made to conclude with summary remarks. Online interviews and
interactions along with surveys made on children exposure to explicit content like social
media, inappropriate videos and alcohol consumption will also be analyzed.
3 Main findings/Conclusion
As underaged children grow in years, they get exposed to many explicit contents including
adult socialisation and individual friends along with larger peer-groups. Other than parental
guidance, many factors influence upon how children develops and grows into an adult. In the
matrix of several factors affecting children’s psychological constraints, guidance given by
parents affects the most, although the studies reveal that these factors often get combined
with other factors like income and genetic effects. According to the research made by

P a g e | 3
Dinleyici, Carman, Ozturk & Dagli (2016), there has been availability of diversified media
nowadays that have started dominating the lives of underaged children and the spaces which
they use in their leisurely time. The presence of mobiles, televisions and computers in
children bedrooms along with giving them access to internet have also increased in past few
years. The study made by authors show that majority of children owned personal mobile
phones and an increase in trend has been recognised in younger children including infants. It
is shown in the study that each day children aging from between 6 months to 4 years spent
their 45 minutes either watching television or mobile videos or gaming consoles. The authors
show high concern for the parents who remains unaware of these activities and show
minimum guidance capability. Since internet and social media do not always provide children
with healthier environment, it is significant for the parents to become aware of which sites or
channels their children are given access to (Dinleyici, Carman, Ozturk, & Dagli, 2016).
According to another study, it was found that nearly two third of teenagers and
children informed that their parents had ‘no rules’ for spending time in social media and that
they inquired very little information about their kids’ involvement with internet ( Nikken &
Schols, 2015). Youth and adolescents spend more time in interacting with media including
internet rather than getting involved in physical activity. Just like internet have grown in past
few decades, so has the availability of explicit content including sexual materials that have
resulted significant amount of underaged children deliberately access or unwillingly exposed
to these contents. Children can get exposed easily through unsolicited mails or pop-ups or
during search made for other information.
Similar concern has been raised by Barry, et al. (2015), where the authors find from
the study that approximately 30% of children started drinking alcohol before age 13. The
adolescent drinking can potentially affect future trajectories and outcomes including issues
related to antisocial behaviour and drugs intaking. The research made on brain imaging

P a g e | 4
asserts that children with alcohol consumption show high response towards alcohol
advertising. This analysis further suggests that advertisement made on explicit contents
effects underaged children and lead them in becoming heavy drinkers. The authors find that
every underaged profile was successfully able to subscribe to every official channel of You
Tube. Nearly two-third of total brands among brand channels were viewed successfully and
over explicit contents like alcohol consumption advertisements remained predominantly
accessible to every underaged adolescents. This shows that the advertising marketers are not
following self-imposed mandates in online marketing of explicit content along with failing to
implement age-restriction measurements (Cranwell, Breton, & Britton, 2015).
4 Limitation
This literature review was limited to looking into the factors related to child exposure to
explicit content present in mobile phones, social media and internet that are been easily
assessed by children. Furthermore, access made to the type of content that proved more
explicit along with finding what aged children preferred watching what kind of content was
not studied. As many children used internet through mobiles and laptops, further research
made on it can be recommended to complete the investigation in appropriate way.
Additionally, interviews of parents studied for this literature review shows that they do not
represent entire population and thus their findings may not be generalised. More
technological approach might complete the web-based survey to evaluate the impact mobile
media and social sites have on underaged children along with finding to what extent parents
missing guidance affect underaged children.
5 Summary Remarks
Active mediation can be offered in media content along with educating child about various
purposes of different media like advertisements and videos. Parents guidance can provide

P a g e | 5
utmost help here to explain their children about how to evaluate prospective effects of
explicit contents. In literature, it has been stated by many authors and researchers that
parental monitoring over children activities, whether be it mental or physical, influences
child’s performance like academics, behaviour and social involvements. Parental guidance
over media content has protective effect on children’s overall activity and outcomes and thus
the above literature review can suggest the need of evidence-based guidelines for usage of
social media and internet for the parents also. Parents must ensure having a thought-out plan
before giving access to their children for getting involved with outside world.

P a g e | 6
References
Barry, A. E., Johnson, E., Rabre , A., Darville, G., Donovan , K. M., & Efunbumi, O. (2015).
Underage Access to Online Alcohol Marketing Content: A YouTube Case Study.
Alcohol and Alcoholism, 50(01), 89-94.
Cranwell, J., Breton, M. O., & Britton, J. (2015). Adult and adolescent exposure to tobacco
and alcohol content in contemporary YouTube music videos in Great Britain: a
population estimate. Journal of Epidemology & Community Health, 70(05), 488-492.
Dinleyici, M., Carman, K. B., Ozturk, E., & Dagli, F. S. (2016). Media Use by Children, and
Parents’ Views on Children's Media Usage. Interactive Journal of Medical Research,
05(02).
Nikken, P., & Schols, M. (2015). How and Why Parents Guide the Media Use of Young
Children. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(11), 3423-3435.