Screen Use at Home is Associated with Shorter Interactions with Objects in Infant-Caregiver Pairs

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Technology, Media & Child Development

Abstract

Starting from a young age, children are actively (e.g., watching TV) and passively (e.g., when parents use their smartphones) exposed to screen-based technology. Children’s passive exposure to technology in terms of background TV and parents’ use of mobile devices often results in a decrease in child-directed speech, interruptions in parent-child interactions, and unresponsive behaviors from parents (Kirkorian et al., 2009; Radesky et al., 2015; McDaniel & Radesky, 2018). A form of parent-child interactions is called triadic interaction where parents and children jointly share attention on a third entity. Establishing longer triadic interactions with parents is associated with more proficient language development (Carpenter et al., 1998; Tomasello & Todd, 1983). This study is the first to investigate whether (1) triadic interactions in homes with background TV (versus no background TV) are shorter, and (2) triadic interactions are shorter if interruptions occur in parent-child interactions due to parents’ use of mobile devices.

Data for this study come from a longitudinal study aimed at investigating infants’ communicative, social, and cognitive development from 8 to 18 months. Forty-five infants were observed and video-recorded for 60 minutes at home when they were 8-, 10-, and 18-months-old. During the observation, a researcher marked the beginning and the end of each episode of triadic interaction via the Mangold Obansys software on a tablet computer. An interaction was coded as triadic if the infant and the caregiver attended to a third object or activity together. Video recordings of home observations were coded by three independent coders for the presence and duration of background TV and the presence and frequency of interruptions due to mothers’ use of mobile devices. Background TV was coded as present if the TV was on while no one was actively watching. Disruptions in parent-infant communication or play and caregivers’ unresponsive behaviors towards infants’ bids of attention (e.g., not responding to infants’ vocalizations directed at the caregiver) were coded as technology-based interruptions. Interrater reliability values (Pearson’s r and Fleiss’ Kappa) were above .98.

Table 1 shows the correlations between the study’s variables and Table 2 shows the results of regression analyses. At 8 months, triadic interactions lasted shorter in homes with background TV. At 10 months, both the presence and the amount of background TV negatively predicted the duration of triadic interactions whereas there was no relation at 18 months. Regarding the maternal use of mobile devices, our results showed that both at 10 and 18 months, infants spent less time in triadic interaction if mother-infant interaction was interrupted due to mothers’ use of mobile devices.

In sum, this study is the first to show that both background TV and mothers’ use of mobile devices around their infants are associated with shorter durations of triadic interactions, which play an important role in language development. Adding to previous lab-based observations and parental reports about the negative effects of background TV and mobile device use by caregivers, these results provide information about parent-infant interactions in relation to the use of screens in home setting, a more naturalistic environment.

Authors

• Berna A. Uzundag, Kadir Has University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ezgi Yildiz, Kadir Has University
  Presenting Author

• Merve Nur Altundal, Özyeğin University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dilara Kessafoglu, Koç Üniversitesi
  Non-Presenting Author