70% moms in India use smartphone for parenting: Survey

While eight in 10 mothers in India believe technology has made parenting easier, 70 per cent mothers claim to have used a smartphone for rearing their kids, according to a new survey.

Smartphone is the most widely used device for parenting, but only 38 per cent would recommend it to their family or friends, said the study by YouGov, an Internet-based market research and data analytics firm.

Parenting apps, on the other hand, are one of the most used and recommended products of technology used for parenting by mothers in India, YouGov said on Saturday.

The study showed that even though mothers in India rely heavily on their family and offline support groups for parenting advice, a higher number of young mothers are likely to consult online blogs for related information (50 per cent), compared to older moms (41 per cent).

For the survey, YouGov interviewed mothers with children between less than 12 months till up to 18 years of age and then categorised then into two groups -- young and old mothers.

Those whose children were between less than 12 months to up to 3 years of age were categorised as young mothers. The researchers collected data from over 700 mothers.

Although technology plays an important role in the lives of these mothers, they fear certain aspects of it, the results showed.

When it comes to the biggest fear of parenting in a digital age, more than three-quarters of mothers (76 per cent) consider protecting their child from online dangers such as cyber bullying a challenge, the study said.

--IANS

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