Digital Media Use in Early Childhood
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The easy interface of touchscreen technologies like tablets and smartphones has enabled children to access the digital world from a very young age. But while some commentators are enthusiastic about how this can open a new world for fun, learning, and developing digital skills, others see the dangers of yet more screens, inauthentic play, and time spent isolated with electronic babysitters that detract from interaction with parents and learning social skills. Taking five as the age when children transition into formal education, this book draws on a three-year research project examining the realities of under six-year-olds’ experiences of these technologies in the UK and Australia. With a theoretical context including Vygotsky, Bruner, Bronfenbrenner and Flewitt, the book examines how parents of young children evaluate the opportunities and risks of children’s digital media use in the context of other significant influences such as children’s time with grandparents, early childhood care and education. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 22 families, and rich ethnographic data from observation and exchanges with their 29 children, aged four months to five years, the book reveals how digital technologies complement and challenge important aspects of daily life for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
Lelia Green is Professor of Communications, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, Australia.
Leslie Haddon is a Guest Lecturer and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Sonia Livingstone (OBE) is Professor of Social Psychology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.
Brian O’Neill is Emeritus Professor, School of Media, Technological University Dublin, Ireland.
Kylie J Stevenson is Academic Chair of Graduate Research Training and Education at Murdoch University, Australia.
Donell Holloway is a retired Senior Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University, Australia.