Parents’ Internet Use Affects Teens

Goldberg’s study tested how household rules for internet use could help curb negative effects. Hannah Sandvoid

Mom and Dad’s relationship with the internet may impact their adolescents’ mental health, according to a study coauthored by UW–Madison psychiatry professor Shiri Raphaely and Simon Goldberg PhD’17, a Center for Healthy Minds faculty member and an associate professor in the Department of Counseling Psychology.

The researchers found that when parents spend a lot of time online, their teens tend to show more signs of depression, including suicidal ideation. The link between parent internet overuse and teen depression persisted even when the researchers factored out unhealthy internet usage on the part of the teens themselves.

“These results support the sobering possibility that how parents are engaging with technology impacts their children’s well-being,” says Goldberg.

The study involved some 4,500 parent-and-adolescent pairs. It also tested how household rules for internet use could help curb negative effects. When rules around time online were unclear and rules about content were loose, adolescent depression tended to increase.

Ultimately, these insights could lead to solutions to help reduce the potentially harmful effects of problematic technology use on children.

Published in the Fall 2026 issue