A Pandemic Silver-Lining: Remote Learning and Increased Intergenerational Technology Guidance Within Lower-Income Families

The COVID-19 pandemic acted as an “accelerant” in many aspects of social life, in that it sped up existing social trends rather than fostering entirely new behaviors. This has been particularly evident in relation to technology use. We examine intergenerational technology guidance—how parents help children, and how children help parents—within lower-income families one year into the pandemic. Our analyses draw on nationally representative, cross-sectional surveys of lower-income U.S. parents with school-aged children in 2021 and 2015, enabling us to compare families’ pandemic experiences to an earlier time point. We ask whether socio-demographic patterns of intergenerational technology guidance changed between 2015 and 2021, and identify what factors might explain these changes. Logistic regression results suggest that the pandemic was an accelerant for intergenerational technology guidance within lower-income U.S. families with school-aged children. Socio-demographic differences in parental technology guidance noted in 2015 largely fell away by 2021. This suggests a “silver-lining” of the pandemic period: that a key form of digital inequality among lower-income U.S. parents was much less pronounced by 2021. Our findings have important implications for policy and practice in the aftermath of pandemic remote learning.