Young Children's Use of Digital Technologies in the home Results from a European research project

Stine Liv Johansen, Associate Professor, Ph.D., Aarhus University @stineliv

Malene Charlotte Larsen, Associate Professor, Ph.D., Aalborg University @malenel

Presentation at the 7th Child and Teen Consumption conference, Aalborg, April 2016

§ Project headed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre

§ Young Children (0-8) and Digital Technology

§ 206 families in 18 countries

§ 10 families in Denmark with 5-6 year old children (5 girls, 5 boys) + siblings§ Different family types (married, divorced, younger/older siblings, no siblings, half/step

siblings) § Mainly middle and upper middle class

§ Danish study in collaboration with The Danish Media Council for Children and Young People

§ Family interviews with probes (stickers, drawings)

§ Two researchers attending each familyvisit

§ Semi-structured interviews with parents

§ Informal conversations with childrenand observations of their media use

§ Card games, visual tours

§ RQ 1: How do children under the age of 8 engage with new (online) technologies?

§ RQ 2: How are new (online) technologies perceived by the different familymembers?

§ RQ 3: What role do these new technologies play in the children’s and parents’ lives (separately and in relation to family life in general)?

§ RQ 4: How do parents manage their younger children’s use of digital technologies?

§ Danish children are heavy users of digital media.

§ The iPad is the most commonly used (and preferred) technology among all the children in the study.

§ Generally, more than 90 % of Danish children under the age of seven have access to a tablet in the home*

§ Broadcast television is becoming less important for the families in the sample.

*The DR media research department's annual report on the use of electronic media in Denmark, p. 26.

§ Children under the age of 8 are rarely 'online'; they use online content, but they do not often engage in practices such as online gaming or social networking.

§ 'The Internet' is a non-concrete issue for the children in the study.

INDIVIDUAL CONTEXT FAMILY CONTEXT

USE RQ 1: Individual Use: children/parents

RQ 3:Family Use/Dynamics/Practices

PERCEPTIONS/ATTITUDES

RQ 2:Awareness to risks/opportunities· of the children· of the parents

RQ 4:Parental Mediation







“Sometimes, my brother and I sit with our iPads and play Minecrafttogether.”- Silas, five years old

From individual use to family activity

From playfulness to relaxation

“I love playing with the iPadbecause you don’t have to talk to anybody while playing.” – Nanna, 6 years old

“The girls definitely get inspired by playing some of their games on the iPad and then making up ‘real’ games from it” – Nina, 32 years old







“She hasn’t really paid that much attention to the iPad. Sometimes, I think we want her to use it more than she does”

– Sanne, 32 years old

“This kind of endless American teenage shows, where they say ‘Oh my God’, and everything is pink (…) We don’t want her to watch these, its not appropriate for her age, and to me it’s just stupid”

- Benny, 38 years old







“I may have used it as a babysitter, when he was a baby. This makes me feel guilty (…) I think it can be too addictive and become a habit. It removes… I want us to be present.”

- Lisbeth, 33 years

“Sometimes we can see that Cecilieneeds to sit with the iPad and just wind down. Perhaps for ten or twenty minutes.”

- Kasper, 34 years

§ Ambiguities of everyday life

§ Not a personal tool

§ Risks around the corner

§ Becoming a media user – consumer and producer

§ The internet as an infrastructure

§ Browsing and choosing

§ Stine Liv Johansen:http://pure.au.dk/portal/da/[email protected]

§ Malene Charlotte Larsen:http://vbn.aau.dk/en/[email protected]

§ Download full report: http://www.dfi.dk/~/media/Sektioner/Medieraadet/internet%20nyheder/National%20report_2015_Denmark_PROOFREAD.ashx