Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash
I have narrowed down my inquiry for this blog (and this course) into an exploration of the effects of digital technology use on young children’s development. I know that there are some strong feelings from both sides: those who see technology as a barrier to healthy child development, and those who feel that by providing children with these tools we are giving them an edge in this technologically driven word. My goal is to sift through the studies and explore the academic and professional literature to come up with an evidence-informed guide for practice. As I work with infants, my focus will be for very young children, but I expect there will be more literature for school-aged children, and this will likely take some sifting.
The task I’ve been set this week was to explore some of the existing projects submitted by UVic students in partial fulfillment of their MEd degrees. I selected Pina Hendry’s project entitled What is the Impact of Digital Technology on Young Students? , which seemed an obvious fit for my inquiry.
Right away I could tell that the author approached the topic with a fair amount of caution. As a kindergarten teacher practicing for over 20 years, she had noted the decline in fine motor skills of entering students, among other changes to things like attention, and language skills. The literature she reviewed seemed to provide evidence to support her opinion that digital technology has detrimental effects on cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. As a practitioner, I have shared this opinion and abide by the Canadian Paediatric Society’s screen time guidelines for young children (found here). However, as with everything else in life, I find that the more I examine a topic, the more nuanced it proves to be. When one refers to digital technology there are so many possible candidates that lumping them all together under the umbrella of ‘digital technology’ and making sweeping proclamations seems disingenuous. Indeed, the literature reviewed looked at samples as varied as television, violent video games, pornography, and social media. I did not see any reference to the apps, programs, games or sites designed to educate or encourage healthy development, of which even I know there are at least some out in the world.
My impression of the project was that by focusing on the dangers of digital tech use for children, we can really see how dangerous they are. I agree that unfettered and unsupervised access to these technologies can be detrimental to each aspect of development. However, while engaging my inner skeptic, I did not see that the opposing argument was adequately accounted for.
In order to balance my view on the topic, I wanted to hear an argument from the other side, and came across the TED talk by Sara DeWitt called 3 Fears About Screen Time for Kids – and Why They’re Not True. Now, my inner skeptic was engaged for this too, and this whole experience is supporting my hypothesis of learning: the more you learn about something, the less able you are to give a definitive answer to a simple question about it.
DeWitt addressed the 3 fears (a. screens are passive; b. playing games on screens is a waste of time; and c. screens isolate parents from their children) and responded to each one with an example. The problem I found was that for each fear, she provided an example of a single app or program that addresses that fear. She did not say that the fears are unfounded, or that they were not true, despite the title of the talk.
So, in reflecting on both the master’s project and the TED talk, I found that neither Hendry nor DeWitt support unfettered, unsupervised access to digital technology for young children. They also both advocate for thoughtful planning and supervision by parents to ensure that the digital tools children are accessing are appropriate, and if not support, at least not hinder healthy development. Despite seeming to come at the issue from opposite sides, Hendry and DeWitt come to the same conclusions: caution is necessary.
In my own inquiry I came across this TEDX video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P41_nyYY3Zg
I appreciated the talk because it provided what I felt to be a more balanced view of technology use by young children. For instance when looking at passive/active engagement, she references a study where children watch puppets hiding. One group watches a video of it, another group watches it through an interactive video game/app, and the third group watches it live through the cut out of a TV. The last two groups are able to find the puppets when brought to the room, whereas the first group has no idea where to look. However, she follows this with a video of a 1.5 year old “interacting” with “Talking Tom,” a interactive app and talks about brain science and the need for human interaction, especially in the early years.
The talk takes the research and looks at some guiding principles, that are more about taking into account the context and the child, instead of rigid guidelines like * amount of hours.
I found the talk helped me to start thinking about the ways technology use could be more balanced, or what that could look like. We work with different age groups, but it may still be of interest 🙂
Great find! I think the growing consensus is that children, especially really young children, need us to mediate their experience with media. It’ll be interesting to see the longitudinal data 20 years in the future and what the results of this mediated approach on learning and development will be.
Since our learning pod met earlier this week I have been thinking about something you said about the effect of ‘role modelling technology use’, even inadvertently, with very young children. I wonder if the way we hold phones, engage in conversation (texting instead of talking), the way our bodies sit while watching Netflix on laptops etc. are those also having effects on infant/child development” I once watched a child pretend to text on a block–two thumbs moving quickly over the block, lips moving, no sound coming out, room full of children. How is her dexterity, language and social engagement (ie. reading social cues) changing? Has her visual cues from her family changed her development in these areas in some way? While I definitely wonder and feel concern when I hear of infants and young children engaged in direct use, I am also beginning to wonder about what is happening in those indirect moments, those moments where children are observing and learning from us? How is our use of digital technology affecting development of young children? As educators how are we modelling the use of technologies in the learning environments we inhabit and what kind of effects does this have on child development and behaviour? What are the developmental effects of digital technologies for young children in both their direct usage/engagement and the messages role modelled?
So good. I loved the Ted Talk, the article, you really “dove in” to the exploration of the effects of digital technology use on young children’s development.
On our video conversing last time, which takes place on Tuesday evenings, we shared experiences about how even in such young age, infant-toddlerhood, technology, media are presenting themselves. Even when parents and educators are ‘tuned to’ think that “oh, there is no way, young children at that age notice any digital technology use,” undeniably, as I recall we agreed, many examples are evidences to prove that even very young children demonstrate their relationship with current digital technology. For example, pretending to call their parents, or just being on the phone, or exhibiting movements and mimics that parents, adults do around them.
I wonder, if you would maybe wish to set a starting point to explore the effects of digital technology use on young children’s development by making notes about how, if any digital technology use surfaces (or what you make note of it as an educator) in children’s play, and in children’s interactions with educators and parents? Perhaps, you may decide to explore the two angles’, (parents’ and educators’ relationship with multimedia technology) and compare and contrast them, by focusing on what is happening in your classroom and also by what you find out by doing research on this topic.
Thank you for joining our learning pod! Hugs, Ildiko