Development and validation of the parental media motivations (MEMO) scales for child and parent media use in the United States

Parental motivations for media use are one of the factors that may shape the quality of media experiences and ultimately child development and family well-being. However, validated scales to capture parental motivations for their own and their children’s media use are lacking. Filling this gap, the current paper describes the development and validation of the Media Motivations for Child (MEMO-C) and Parent (MEMO-P) scales in a sample of 501 parents with young children (2-5 years old). The MEMO-C measures motivations for children’s media use, while the MEMO-P measures motivations for parents’ own use, emphasizing parents’ regulatory and relational goals. Each scale had a three-factor structure (MEMO-C: Regulate, Occupy, Connect; MEMO-P: Regulate, Relax Alone, Connect). These factors demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including high reliability, convergent validity, and incremental validity, uniquely predicting child- and parent-related constructs. By measuring parental media motivations through a regulatory and relational lens, these scales enable researchers to more closely examine how family media use is associated with child development and family members’ well-being. Most research on child media use overlooks parental motivations that may shape families’ media experiences, and measurement tools for such motivations are lacking. This paper presents two multidimensional scales measuring parental motivations for child media use (MEMO-C) and parents’ own media use (MEMO-P), focusing on regulatory and relational aspects in parenting contexts. The scales will enable researchers to examine parents’ motivations for media use as potential targets for intervention aimed at promoting positive media use.