Digital Media Use in Early Childhood : Birth to Six

The easy interface of touchscreen technologies like tablets and smartphones have 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 the learning of 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 concerns they associate with children's digital media use in the context of other significant influences such as children's time with grandparents and in early childhood care and education. Drawing upon 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 examines how digital technologies complement and challenge important aspects of daily life for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

• | Author: Lelia Green, Leslie Haddon, Sonia Livingstone, Donell Holloway, Brian O’Neill, Kylie Stevenson
• | Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• | Publication Date: Jul 11, 2024
• | Number of Pages: NA pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 1350120278
• | ISBN-13: 9781350120273