Elsevier

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Volume 36, January–February 2015, Pages 11-17
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Young children's screen time: The complex role of parent and child factors

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2014.12.001Get rights and content

Highlights

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    Parent screen time is the strongest predictor of child screen time.

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    Parent screen time and parent attitudes influence child screen time.

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    Child screen time varies as a function of child age and by device.

Abstract

Many children are spending more time with screen media than has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. There is evidence that parent television use is associated with higher levels of child television time, but we know little about what predicts children's media use with other technology. Using a nationally representative sample of more than 2300 parents of children ages 0–8, children's time spent with four digital media devices – television, computers, smartphones, and tablet computers – was examined. Results from linear regression analyses indicate across all four platforms that parents' own screen time was strongly associated with child screen time. Further analyses indicate that child screen time use appears to be the result of an interaction between child and parent factors and is highly influenced by parental attitudes. Results suggest that policymakers should consider the family environment as a whole when developing policy to influence children's screen media use at home.

Section snippets

Parent media use and attitudes

Children's time with media technology can be explained using two different theoretical perspectives. First, Bandura (1977) posits that learning and behavior occur as a result of observing behaviors. Young children spend much of their early years watching and learning from their parents and siblings in their home. Children observe as their parents cook dinner, interact with each other, and use media. Furthermore, with more individualized media use, young children likely watch their parents model

Participants

Participants were a sample of 2326 parents of children between the ages of 0 and 8 years who drawn from GfK's probability-based Knowledge Panel of participants. The sample data was then weighted to resemble a U.S. population based on a set of study-specific post-stratification variables including gender, age, Race/Hispanic ethnicity, education, census region, household income, home ownership status, metropolitan area, Internet access, and primary language.

Results

Prior to all descriptive statistics and analyses, the data were weighted to represent the demographic make-up of the United States using the weighting provided by Knowledge Networks/GfK. Knowledge Networks/GfK used a post-stratification process to adjust for any survey non-response, non-coverage, and under- or oversampling resulting from the study specific design.

Discussion

Young children are growing up in homes that are filled with screen media technologies, and they are frequent users. Consistent evidence indicates that many children spend more than the American Academy of Pediatrics (2013) recommends with screen media including television, computers, and mobile devices (e.g., Rideout, 2011, Rideout and Hamel, 2006). The question remains: what factors are associated with children's screen media use of new media technologies? This study provides novel evidence

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