PROSOCIAL MEDIA, PARENTAL BEHAVIORAL CONTROL, AND STUDENTS’ CHARACTER BUILDING IN THE DIGITAL ERA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54437/ilmuna.v8i2.3918Keywords:
prosocial media, parental behavioral control, character building, prosocial behavior, self-regulation, empathy, adolescents.Abstract
The development of students’ character increasingly occurs within interconnected digital and family environments. This systematic literature review examines the contribution of exposure to prosocial media and parental behavioral control to character building among school students. The evidence base consisted of 24 publications, including 20 studies from two predefined literature corpora and four additional internationally verified studies. Narrative-comparative synthesis was employed because the studies varied substantially in media measures, parenting constructs, samples, and character-related outcomes. Findings indicate that media effects depend strongly on content. Studies specifically addressing prosocial media consistently associate such exposure with empathy, helping behavior, and other prosocial outcomes, whereas studies measuring general social-media use produce mixed positive, negative, and nonsignificant findings. Parental behavioral control may support discipline, future planning, self-regulation, and reduced risk behavior when implemented through clear monitoring and proportionate behavioral boundaries. Excessive or autonomy-restricting control may produce less adaptive outcomes. The synthesis suggests a complementary mechanism in which prosocial media provides behavioral models while parental behavioral control regulates exposure and supports internal self-regulation. Direct empirical tests of their combined effect on character building, however, remain limited.
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