Variability in infant’s digital media use: The impact of age, vocabulary, and activity type

• In Event: Implications of digital technologies for children's learning and development

Abstract

Digital media is ubiquitous in most Western households, even for young infants (Rideout, 2017). There are differences in how much individual children use digital media associated with later development (e.g. Stockdale et al., 2022), however, it remains unclear where such differences originate. The current study is an exploratory analysis of such differences across individuals. Here, age, vocabulary, activity type, and reasons for using technology were explored in relation to the child’s digital media use in 17-30-month old children.

152 parents of children between 17- and 30-months completed questionnaires on their child’s technology use (MAQ; Barr et al., 2020) and vocabulary (MCDI-WS). This included questions aimed at what technology-based activities children engage in (videos, digital games, video chat, E-books) as well as parent reasons for engaging in each activity (education, calming child, occupy child, child enjoyment, connecting with others).

First, a linear mixed model predicting average amount of media time (minutes/day) was run with fixed effects of activity type (contrast coded), child age (in days, centered) and child total vocabulary (centered), which both interacted with activity type, and a random participant intercept. There was a main effect of activity, χ2=346.46, p<.001. Follow-up pair wise analyses revealed that children spent the most amount of time watching videos, even more than reading print books, p<.001. There was also an interaction between activity and vocabulary, χ2=10.47, p=.03. Follow-up models examining activities individually revealed a significant effect of vocabulary on video watching, β=-32.68, t=-2.56, p=.011 such that children with higher vocabularies spent less time watching videos than children with smaller vocabularies. Interactions between vocabulary and other activities were non-significant. See Figure 1.

Second, we explored the reasons why parents use digital media with their children, examining activities separately. Logistic models predicted whether or not a parent indicated a given reason for that activity from the type of reason (contrast coded), vocabulary (centered), and age (in days, centered). The model included a random participant intercept. Parents used videos for educational purposes more than for calming, t=1.88, SE=.33, p<.001, or connecting, t=1.58, SE=.34, p<.001. When parents did use videos for connecting, children were likely younger, β=-.80, z=-1.20, p=.001, or had higher vocabularies, β=.83, z=3.15, p=.002. Digital game reasons were similar, whereas video chatting was used for connecting, t=-8.64, SE=2.26, p=.001, and enjoyment, t=-6.54, SE=2.17, p=.022, more than for education. Education was top for E-books and print books. See Figure 2.

Overall, infants 17-30-months-old are most often using digital media to watch videos and frequently for educational purposes, but there is a wide range in how often they do so and why. Future work will explore cascading effects of these variables on language outcomes. Critically, however, these exploratory results clearly indicate that families do not use all digital media for the same reasons or for the same amount of time, and thus, the impacts of digital media use on development may also vary and should be studied separately.

Authors

• Sarah C Kucker, Southern Methodist University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel F Barr, Georgetown University

• Lynn K Perry, University of Miami