Interactional theory of childhood problematic media use

The growth of mobile device access and ownership has yielded many opportunities and challenges for raising healthy digital media consumers. As adoption of mobile and internet‐connected devices has increased among children, concerns for healthy child development have been expressed regarding excessive or problematic use. Although much theoretical and empirical work has been conducted evaluating adolescents’ and adults’ risks for dependence on various screen media (e.g., Gaming Disorder, Internet Addiction), little theoretical consideration has been expounded regarding the etiology and maintenance of problematic media use earlier in childhood (i.e., under age 12 years). The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework through which to investigate problematic media use in early childhood. Our theory, the Interactional Theory of Childhood Problematic Media Use (IT‐CPU) merges developmental and clinical psychology theories, with communication and human‐computer interaction perspectives. We outline distal and proximal factors that we hypothesize contribute to the development of problematic media use in childhood, and emphasize maintaining factors that could be targets for intervention. Finally, we provide recommendations for an interdisciplinary research agenda to test our proposed theory and inform experimental trials to prevent and treat childhood problematic media use.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163470/2/hbe2217_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163470/1/hbe2217.pd

Beyond screen time: a synergistic approach to a more comprehensive assessment of family media exposure during early childhood

Digital media availability has surged over the past decade. Because of a lack of comprehensive measurement tools, this rapid growth in access to digital media is accompanied by a scarcity of research examining the family media context and sociocognitive outcomes. There is also little cross-cultural research in families with young children. Modern media are mobile, interactive, and often short in duration, making them difficult to remember when caregivers respond to surveys about media use. The Comprehensive Assessment of Family Media Exposure (CAFE) Consortium has developed a novel tool to measure household media use through a web-based questionnaire, time-use diary, and passive-sensing app installed on family mobile devices. The goal of developing a comprehensive assessment of family media exposure was to take into account the contextual factors of media use and improve upon the limitations of existing self-report measures, while creating a consistent, scalable, and cost-effective tool. The CAFE tool captures the content and context of early media exposure and addresses the limitations of prior media measurement approaches. Preliminary data collected using this measure have been integrated into a shared visualization platform. In this perspective article, we take a tools-of-the-trade approach (Oakes, 2010) to describe four challenges associated with measuring household media exposure in families with young children: measuring attitudes and practices; capturing content and context; measuring short bursts of mobile device usage; and integrating data to capture the complexity of household media usage. We illustrate how each of these challenges can be addressed with preliminary data collected with the CAFE tool and visualized on our dashboard. We conclude with future directions including plans to test reliability, validity, and generalizability of these measures

Technology as a disruptive agent: Intergenerational perspectives

YesThis study explores how British South Asian parents perceive their children’s technology consumption through their collectivist lenses and interdependent values. The findings for this qualitative study indicate that second and third generation South Asian parents acknowledge the benefits of children’s technology use; but largely perceive technology as a disruptive agent, whereby children are becoming isolated and increasingly independent within the household. The analysis aims to understand how parents view their children’s relationship with others as a result of technology consumption. Accordingly, this paper proposes an extension of the Construal of self conceptualisation and contributes a Techno-construal matrix that establishes a dyadic connection between technology consumption and cultural values. Overall, the study reveals that children display less inter-reliance and conformance typically associated with collectivist cultures, resulting from their technology use. Consequently, parents interpret their children’s shift from interdependence to more independence as a disruptive and unsettling phenomenon within the household

Tablets, toddlers and tantrums: The immediate effects of tablet device play

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163919/1/apa15509_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163919/2/apa15509.pd

Tablets, toddlers and tantrums: The immediate effects of tablet device play

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163919/1/apa15509_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163919/2/apa15509.pd

Children aged 3–4 years were more likely to be given mobile devices for calming purposes if they had weaker overall executive functioning

AimYoung children with weaker self-regulation use more digital media, but studies have been limited by parent-reported screen time measures. We examine associations between early childhood executive functioning and objective mobile device usage.MethodsThe parents of 368 American children (51.6% male) aged 3–4 years of age completed standardised measures of executive functioning, parenting stress and household chaos. They provided mobile sampling data for 1 week in 2018–2019 and reported how often the children used mobile devices to calm themselves.ResultsThe children’s mean age was about 3.8 years. A third of the children who were given devices to calm them down had weaker executive functioning in the overall and multivariable models, including working memory, planning and organisation. So did 39.7% of the children who used educational apps. Streaming videos, using age-inappropriate apps and using the mobile device for more than1 h per day were not associated with executive functioning levels. Parenting stress and household chaos did not moderate the associations.ConclusionThis study confirms previous studies that suggesting that children with weaker overall executive functioning used devices more for calming purposes. It also raises questions about whether children with weaker executive functioning should use educational apps.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/172995/1/apa16314.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/172995/2/apa16314_am.pd