Family Efficacy and communications 2.0: exploring the role of the beliefs about social media impact on family ties

In modern times social relationships and family systems are becoming always more vulnerable. As nowadays new technologies are cultural practices embedded in everyday life also referring to the management of family ties, understanding their impact on it could help in strengthening family systems and the ties within them. Being family efficacy beliefs positively related to open communications, this contribution asks whether the beliefs about social media impact on family ties have an effect on family communication too within the “digital families” (Mascheroni, 2013). Thus, we conducted a study with 247 parents who use also social media to communicate with their children to deepen this phenomenon. We used the Collective Family Efficacy Scale (α = .96, Caprara et al., 2004) and two scales we created to assess the Family Communication (α = .90) and the Social Media Impact on Family Ties (α = .74) beliefs; the items for the two scales came from some preliminary interviews. The results show that family efficacy beliefs are predictors for a positive family communication (B = .356, p < 0.01) and the beliefs about social media impact on family ties have a partial mediating role within this relationship (B = .019, p < 0.01). The results were tested using a bootstrap estimation approach with 10000 samples. These results suggest that considering the family system as a whole to implement the family efficacy also referring to the management of social media impact on family ties could help in promoting open communications and a positive family functioning.