Poster #105 - Knocks and Nudges: Understanding the Differential Impacts of Screen Media

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Understanding children’s developmental trajectories and the ways in which environmental exposures influence these trajectories demand more contextually sensitive conceptualizations. One way to introduce these conceptualizations is to carefully consider the interplay between individual differences and exposures to early conditions, experiences, interventions, or any other bases for predicting diverging developmental trajectories. Creating optimal developmental conditions for children involves identifying exposures that reflect and support their unique strengths and validate their multiple identities. One such exposure that can influence development in a myriad of ways is screen media exposure. Much of the literature investigating screen media exposure supports the premise that media content is responsible for any observed effects on development (e.g., Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger, & Wright, 2001), and that exposure to high quality content will be beneficial across a wide variety of important child domains (e.g., Fisch, 2004). The impact of creating such optimal developmental conditions is then hypothesized to be more pronounced if it knocks children off their expected developmental trajectory. Conversely, the impact of these exposures will be attenuated and harder to detect if such exposures nudge children along their expected normative path (Wright, 2001).

Differential Impact Theory (DIT) provides a framework for investigating how changes to a child’s environment causes them to change and how these changes are dependent on the quality of the psychological, sociocultural, and economic resources provided by the environment, balanced by the quality and quantity of the child’s level of risk (Ungar, 2011). DIT is used to identify which Promotive and Protective Factors and Processes (PPFP) support which children through what media interventions in what context (Barr & Nichols Linebarger, 2016). Ungar (2011) describes three ways that differential impacts might be manifested. Model 1 indicates that an intervention is likely to have its greatest impact on children who are at most risk (a knock) while those experiencing no or low risk will show little benefit (a nudge). Model 2 proposes that an intervention may help children experiencing less risk in a modest way (a nudge) but harm children who experience more risk (a knock). Model 3 specifies that an intervention may substantially benefit children at higher levels of risk (a knock) but harm children who are experiencing less risk (a knock).

In this poster, four different PPFPs (i.e., individual differences, repeated exposure, relationships, cultural congruence) will be used to illustrate the relations among risk, screen media exposure, and outcomes, and how a specific constellation of factors and processes leads to differential impacts in ways that shift poorer developmental trajectories toward more optimal outcomes. See Figures 1 and 2 for two examples.

These screen media interventions were successful because they matched children’s unique strengths and differences with the kinds of resources and experiences they have access to, prefer, and value. In such settings, the provision of high-quality educational media knocked them off their less than optimal developmental trajectories toward ones that were more positive whereas their peers who were progressing normatively along a particular trajectory demonstrated little, or even a negative impact.

Author

• Deborah L. Nichols, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Presenting Author