Although it has been argued that children under three should not spend any time in front of a screen, research has found that digital technology can offer “great opportunities” for the development of young children.
A two-year study Young children, technology and talksfunded by the Economic and Social Research Council and led by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), in collaboration with the universities of Lancaster, Queen’s Belfast, Strathclyde and Swansea, analyzed children’s interactions with everything from Amazon Alexa to Ring doorbells, in various communities around the world. UK, to find out how technology was influencing the speech and literacy of children aged 0-3.
It examined how children use technology with their parents or on their own, whether taking photos and videos, using learning apps and playing games, listening to and singing songs, talking about their favorite characters or chatting on video calls.
Researchers found that children not only interacted with smart devices and gadgets when they were very young, but also that digital technology could have benefits for the development of language and other skills.
“Evidence generated through this study suggests that young children’s digital activity often involves sensory exploration through touch, vision, hearing, movement, and embodied cognition,” the report says.
“In short, very young children often feel, think and move when they interact with digital media, which is seamlessly integrated into many homes as part of everyday life.
“While parents recognize the many benefits of technology for children’s development, they balance this with concerns that too much technology will be harmful to their children.”
The report described how video calls created “great opportunities” in multilingual homes for children to learn words and phrases from all languages and about the cultures of their relatives abroad.
“Through these digitally mediated conversations, very young children…develop the ability to seamlessly switch between languages,” promoting “cognitive growth” and “forging loving relationships” with family members, according to the report.
The study, which surveyed 1,400 parents in the UK, including 40 case studies in family homes, with 20 education professionals interviewed, also looked at families’ television habits and found that “several parents mentioned that their children had learned specific words and phrases while watching television. certain programs with attention.”
He added that for some parents, watching television or listening to music together “offers opportunities for parents and children to forge and appreciate shared experiences, which over time develop into strong emotional bonds.”
The report said that even in homes where the television was on in the background all day, “each toddler in the study appeared to occupy herself with a wide range of play and learning activities in the same room… and paid very little attention to the television. ”, with a 25-month-old girl in whose house she watched CBeebies, whenever she was at home, showing “highly developed skills with a wide range of traditional play resources both with and without help from her mother”.
“Many parents” reported that their children under the age of three had learned to sign online, according to the report, and one child tried to use signing to tell Google Home what he wanted, before gradually learning that “smart home devices “They respond to very clearly stated words.”
At the same time, children too young to have “clear diction” learned through observation to manipulate smart devices in other ways, such as touching, according to the report.
The researchers hope their findings will be used to inform policy and good practice, and parents will agree that greater protection of children’s privacy and safety is needed.
Rosie Flewitt, lecturer in early childhood communication at MMU, said: “Parents are acutely aware of the opportunities and tensions around their children’s use of digital technology. “They balance beneficial opportunities for their children to communicate with others, play and learn, with concerns about the possible harmful effects of excessive use.”
