How Real and Virtual Toys and Games Affect Children’s Play and Parent-child Interactions

• In Event: 1-054 - Emerging Perspectives on Cognitive and Social Development in Virtual Spaces

Integrative Statement

The proliferation of touchscreen tablet device use in children’s lives has changed the way children are playing, learning, and interacting on a daily basis. Previous research has demonstrated that electronic toys use affects parent-child interactions (e.g., Zosh et al., 2015). The current research guided by the possibility that touchscreen app use may similarly affect children’s play and their interactions with parents—even when controlling for the type of activity across modalities.

Specifically, the current research examines verbal communication and joint attention between children and parents while they engage in touchscreen-app play and analogous real toy play. We hypothesized that both verbal communication (measured by words spoken/per minute) and joint attention would be lower in the digital conditions compared to material play.

Participants were child-parent dyads (N=25, with N=10 coded to date) and children ranged between 5-7 years (M= 6.1 SD= .59). Four material games and their closest available digital equivalents were used: Jenga, HotWheels, Crazy Gears, and Dolls. We used a within-subjects design in which children interacted with two of the activities in both digital and material form. The specific activities and the order were chosen by random assignment. In total, each participant engaged in four (2 material, 2 digital) separate 10-minute play sessions with their parent in the room. Parents were instructed to initially observe their child and interact with the child if she requested her to do so.

Analysis focused on triadic joint attention (TA) and verbal communication. TA was coded in 10-second bins (60 bins per 10-minute play session with one game/one modality) and was determined to either be present or not present in each bin. TA was defined as both the child and parent attending to both the game and each other (indicated by verbal exchanges, alternating between looking towards each other and the game, and physical gestures to each other and the game). Verbal communication was analysed by counting the number of words spoken by the parent and child (relevant to the game) and averaged as words per minute.

Paired t-tests performed on the preliminary results (Figure 1) suggest a difference in the level of TA, where higher levels of TA are seen in material play sessions compared to digital play sessions (p < .005). A similar pattern was revealed for words spoken by children (Figure 1)—with more words spoken in the material conditions than in digital conditions (p < .005). Although words spoken by parents did not differ meaningfully by condition, preliminary examination of the conversations during app play suggest that parents were most likely to offer input when the child seemed to struggle with using the digital technology. In contrast, discussions during toy play appeared less instructive in nature.

In contrast to other research findings in this symposium, the current findings highlight important negative implications for children’s virtual play relative to real object play. In particular, even when controlling for the type of play activity, digital play appears to elicit less social interaction.

Authors

• Jessica Guy, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Balanzategui, Swinburne University of Technology
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kate Highfield, Early Childhood Australia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer M Zosh, Penn State University, Brandywine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jordy Kaufman, Swinburne University of Technology
  Non-Presenting Author