Parents’ Perceptions of the Use of YouTube by their Children in Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

The current study intends to investigate how parents aged between 24 and 54 in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, feel about the use of YouTube for their children’s development. To achieve this, this study used semi-structured interviews, following a qualitative methodology. The sample of parents was taken from a school’s official Twitter account in Riyadh, which promoted the study’s topic to encourage parents to participate. The participants were able to share their perspectives regarding the use of YouTube for their children’s development based on their own experiences. The study’s findings showed that parents had relatively mixed opinions about using YouTube, and some participants mentioned that giving their children access to the site could have negative effects on their development. Parents observed that using YouTube could be a source of time-wasting and distraction, and that it could also put them under psychological and physical pressures. However, the participants also emphasised the advantages of YouTube in their children’s learning processes: using it for different academic subjects and to enhance their academic performance. Based on these findings, the study recommends educating parents on how their children use YouTube as well as reforming and improving the ways in which they monitor their children’s access to the platform, as this would help ensure that their children stay in a secure environment. Additionally, it suggests establishing workshops and training programmes to improve parents’ ability to use YouTube and to increase their capacity to benefit from its advantages on behalf of their children. Finally, the study suggests offering parents training programmes and workshops on how to assist their children as they use YouTube for various developmental purposes, as it has been discovered that parents have a significant impact on their children’s attitudes to and perspectives on using YouTube.