Photo by Alexander Dummer on Unsplash
In the article Infants, Toddlers and Learning from Screen Media by Courage & Troseth (2016), the authors conducted a literature review to examine whether or not infants and toddlers can learn from screen media. The evidence they examined indicated that no, infants under the age of 2 do not learn from screen media. They said that āalthough infants and toddlers are remarkably capable learners in direct social interaction, their language and story comprehension skills are limited and they are unlikely to follow the narrative content, story line, or content to be learned from a video or appā. Starting at about 15 months, with co-viewing and explicit adult participation to mediate the childās understanding of screen media, children can learn from educational programming. The big caveat according to the authors is that they still donāt learn as much through mediated viewing as the would through regular play and interaction with a caring adult.
These findings aligned with the Canadian Paediatric Societyās position statement, Screen time and young children: Promoting health and development in a digital world, which also argued that there were no substantiated claims that children under the age of 2 received any benefit from screen time. The statement further claimed that āthere [was] solid evidence that infants and toddlers [had]difficulty transferring new learning from a 2D representation to a 3D object (e.g., from screen to real life) and [were] unlikely to learn from TV at this ageā.
Another aspect of screen media that Courage and Troseth examined was background television use. They claimed that children exposed to background television were less engaged in their play, they directed frequent quick looks at the television, and showed less focused attention on their toys. When they engaged with adults, the adults tended to give delayed and less focused responses when the TV was on.
This made me think about how we as adults role-model screen use, and how children are learning the norms of social interaction with, and around screens. Another student in my cohort posted this blog post by Karen Nelson that, although aimed at pre-K and kindergarten teachers, brought up an intriguing point:Ā we should be modeling appropriate tech etiquette. In my practice, children often use anything that will fit in their hand as a phone, and walk around ātalkingā on it, or passing the toy to a teacher to take the call. They have obviously seen people using phones, but in what contexts? We might be play eating in the housekeeping centre when one of the children passes me a phone. Normally I would accept the call and talk briefly on the phone to engage with the child and scaffold their play. But am I just role-modeling poor tech etiquette? By accepting the pretend call, I am indicating that the phone takes precedence over the face to face interactions I am having while I pretend to eat with other children. And I hate when people answer their phones at dinner!
Iām beginning to get some vague ideas about where I want to take this. It has something to do with role-modeling tech use, distraction potential of background screens for both children and adults, and the necessity to mediate young childrenās use of digital and screen media. I guess the intersection of tech, infants, and adults and how to optimally navigate these interactions. It seems to all boil down to mindfulness.
Ever since our chat last week (or maybe the week before), where we discussed the ways in which we role-model tech etiquette, I have been very cognizant of the ways children incorporate tech into their role play. Early last week when I arrived a work a but later in the day, I was intrigued to see many of the children returning from the forest for lunch carrying what looked like mini computers made out of cardboard. When I inquired, the children informed me they were ipads, computers, laptops, and TV-computers (depending on the child). One child told me it was so he could watch TV in the forest, another told me it was for “doing work,” while another informed us “no laptops at the dinner table!”
It has been interesting to inquire alongside and think with the children about technology and its role in their lives. In particular the social disconnect that sometimes takes place between adults and children when a device is present.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts about the article/study I sent about the still-face experiment and how it relates to technology use!
That’s so interesting that the children were creating devices to essentially occupy themselves in nature. Definitely they have been exposed to technology use role-modeling, and probably unintentionally. It just goes to show that we need to be cognizant, and vigilant about how we behave around children. Most parents have taught themselves not to swear around their kids, so I hope that we can all learn to be mindful of our tech etiquette as well!
Like you and ‘findmeintheforest’ mentioned, so often we see children imitating technology use in their play–making/taking calls, texting, googling, emailing, creating tablets and taking photos/videos. I wonder, what are we teaching about social dynamics and interactions as we move about the world regularly connected to devices? I appreciate the reminder you give about interactions in the children’s role play (taking a call while pretend eating), maybe as educators we need to disrupt this play (oh, my phone is off while I eat, try to call me later)–would this work to shift thinking– open up opportunities to create new playing/social scenarios?
In the centre where I work I think we have a pretty good balance of use, mostly using an iPod Touch as a camera–but even then I wonder what am missing when I document one thing and not another, what message am I sending to the children about what constitutes a moment ‘worth’ documenting? How am I modelling the importance of each moment?
Your post also reminds me to be cognizant of the language I use when discussing digital technologies with the children (in play or discussion) and other adults in the centre. Am I putting heavy importance on these devices? Am I speaking positively or negatively about certain technologies? What feelings am I putting out there about digital technologies in general? Thanks for the post, it has left me with lots to think about.
” I wonder what am missing when I document one thing and not another, what message am I sending to the children about what constitutes a moment āworthā documenting? How am I modelling the importance of each moment?” – You make an interesting point here. This is something I have struggled with, as in my ECE education, objectivity was always stressed as an important aspect of documentation. Then I studied philosophy… We are always going to document (and interpret, and indeed, even see) from our own personal contexts, and I think we should just own it. I have seen in your blog that the children and others also have to opportunity to document in various ways at your centre. To me, that means you are sharing the power to determine what is ‘important’ or worth documenting with the children. By talking to the children about how we all have different perspectives and see things differently, you decentralize your own perspective and honour theirs.
I have worked in infant-toddler’s classrooms here in Canada and in US too. Reading your post, and dialoguing with you on our weekly learning pod meetings, brought, and continues to bring back memories from the time when I spent my days with children 18 – 36 months old. After reading your post, as I am reflecting on it, what echoes back to me first and foremost is the highlighting of adults (parents, educators) ways of how parents and educators act as role-models in terms of technology and multimedia use in the presence of infant-toddlers.
My thinking is branching out in many directions. Mimicking adults’ behaviours is so very much present in the life of infants and toddlers, and in later life too, in fact.
I still remember my son being very young, I, reading to him. When the page wouldn’t turn, I would lick my finger (still trying to get out of this habit) so the paper would stick to my finger, turning the page that way. I remember noticing with an awe that my son mimicked my moves in a reverse order. Turned the page, licked his finger then attempted to sound out what the image inspired him to ‘tell me.’ Soon after we travelled back for a visit to my native country, Hungary, which was a long flight. I am sure I am not the only parent who ‘gives in to media use’ when travelling overseas. On the little screen in front of us, I attempted to read some news while my son was napping next to me. I remember, at one point he looked at the screen, licked his finger, and reached to the screen to turn the page. He did it in the ‘right way’, right order the first time. Licked his finger, reached and tried to turn the page. Except, he had to discover that the screen would change instead of turning the page. š
I wonder if it would be interesting to you to construct a qualitative survey asking parents and educators to participate in an experiment. In that, I imagine the investigation would be about infant-toddler’s being exposed to images in both iPad (or other screen media) and in picture books. Possibly the same images would be shown in same sequences. In this ‘set-up’ the research question would be to investigate weather infant-toddlers show interest (acquire information) more or less to screen media when they are introduced to the same identical visuals.
Thanks for this post, it definitely has left me with lots to think about. It is a treat to read your post and others’ comments, reading-learning about others’ prospectives and thinking on your topic. There is a tendency, I agree that during the time of infant-toddler of human growth and development, parents, educators tend to sort of shelter children from media, or, they think they do?
It seems to me you have an inquiry topic. It is, in my interpretation, based on your journey from the first day of class ’til this point.
Ruth’s inquiry topic:
Exploration of the effects of digital technology use on young childrenās development: Navigating intersections of tech, infants, and adults and how to optimally navigate these exchanges.
I am very curious about what citations/references you have selected.