Poster #242 - Mobile media use predicts young children’s effortful control

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Mobile screen-media devices (MSMDs; smartphones and tablets) are ubiquitous in the lives of young children in the U.S. (Rideout, 2013), but studies are only beginning to examine their influence on important developmental tasks. One critical process that has been previously linked to the use of more traditional screen-media devices (TSMDs; particularly television, but also laptop and personal computers; see Lillard, 2015 for a review) is the development of self-regulation (SR). Preschool-age children’s SR skills predict diverse but consequential outcomes throughout the lifespan, including those related to academics, health, income, criminality (e.g., Moffitt et al., 2011), and social functioning (Fergusson, Boden, & Horwood, 2013). Previous research linking use of TSMDs with SR in preschoolers has shown negative or null effects (e.g., Barr, Lauricella, Zack, & Calvert, 2016; Yang, Chen, Wang, & Zhu, 2017); the few studies that have examined MSMDs indicate that their relation to SR may be different (e.g., Huber et al., 2018). Given that the use of MSMDs among young children is prevalent and increasing (Rideout, 2013), and that MSMDs can be utilized in discrepant ways from TSMDs (Bentley, Turner, & Jago, 2016), research is needed to identify whether the use of MSMDs influences SR development and whether it relates in different ways than the use of TSMDs. Consequently, this project examines child effortful control (EC; the temperamental component of SR) and screen media use among young preschoolers, and discusses relations between use of these two categories of devices. We predict that (1) use of TSMDs and (2) MSMDs will predict child SR, and that (3) correlates of use will differ for young children’s use of TSMDs and MSMDs.

Fifty older toddlers and young preschoolers (M age = 37.27 months; 48% female; 60% non-Hispanic White) plus at least one parent (84% mothers) participated in 90-minute laboratory visits. Children engaged in an 11-task EC behavioral battery (α = .65) adapted from Kochanska and colleagues (1996); sessions were later coded from video by the first author and at least one additional research assistant (κ = .87). Parents completed questionnaires including a novel measure of screen media use created by the first author. Preliminary results partially support our hypotheses. Table 1 shows that linear regression controlling for child age (β = .29, p = .044), gender, and ethnicity and parent age, income, and education reveals that weekly average MSMD use by children (β = -.29, p = .040) predicts their EC scores, F(7, 46) = 2.40, p = .038, R2 = .30. Inclusion of TSMD use does not improve the model. Furthermore, children with older parents began using MSMDs (but not TSMDs) at later ages (r = .40, p = .017); this relation was not found for the use of TSMDs and no other sociodemographic factors were found to be related to either type of use. Ongoing longitudinal study of this sample will allow for a more rigorous investigation of these relations, including an examination of the possible direction of causality.

Authors

• Amanda Lawrence, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Madhuri Narayan, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel Ewon Choe, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zikora Akah, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author