Associations Between Children’s Media Use and Language and Literacy Skills

Abstract

Media use is a pervasive aspect of children's home experiences but is often not considered in studies of the home learning environment. Media use could be detrimental to children's language and literacy skills because it may displace other literacyenhancing activities like shared reading and decrease the quantity and quality of caregiver-child interaction. Thus, the current study asked whether media use is associated with gains in children's language and literacy skills both at a single time point and across a school year and whether age moderates any association. Children (N = 1583) were from preschool through third grade classrooms and language and literacy skills were measured in the fall and spring of the school year. Parents reported how much time their child spends using media on a typical school day. Regression analyses showed that using 4 h or more of media was related to lower literacy gains, but not to language gains. Multilevel models conducted as a robustness check showed that this effect did not hold when accounting for classroom. In neither set of models was there an interaction between age and media use. Single-time-point models did show some associations that did not manifest in more stringent models, highlighting the limitations of correlational designs that do not have measures of children's skills over time. Given the concern and popular press coverage around children's media use, it is important to acknowledge non-significant effects in this domain. These nonsignificant associations suggest that societal fears around children's media use may be exaggerated. Notably, however, characteristics of children's media use, like educational content or adult co-use, may moderate any effects. The relation between media use and language and literacy growth did not differ across the age range investigated suggesting that, within this range, younger children are not more vulnerable to detrimental effects.

Exposure to screens and children’s language development in the EDEN mother–child cohort

“…Indeed, previous studies also suggested that parental characteristics and home environment (e.g., socioeconomic status and parental support) mattered more and were stronger predictors of children’s neurodevelopment than the amount of screen media use per se 10 , 30 , 31 . Another possible explanation for the inverted U-shape relationship could be that children watching moderate amount of TV watch programs of higher quality, and this may be beneficial for their language compared to non-watchers 32 , 33 .…”

Home learning environment and out-of-home activities: their relations to prosocial behaviour and peer relationships in primary school children

“…For instance, Segers and Kleemans ( 2020 ) only found relations between analog (but not digital activities at home such as reading to the child or playing language and word games) with children’s language skills. The authors argued that one reason of the absence of relations between digital HLE and child language skills might lay in the quality of digital HLE (Segers & Kleemans, 2020 ; see Dore et al, 2020 , for similar findings on relations between media use and language skills and interpretation of results). Notably, in their study, there was a relatively high number of missing answers on questions on digital activities at home.…”

Investigating the reliability and validity of the Toddler Home Learning Environment (THLE) scale

“…This reflects the historic context when the ECCE study took place (such technology being much less common in 2010 when the first children were recruited to the evaluation). Although ECCE investigated television viewing alongside the HLE (as a kind of 'displacement activity'; Dore, et al, 2020), future research could also explore the extent to which smart phone and/or tablet use is related to other kinds of home learning activities for this very young age group. This would also help to inform the currently sparse and at-times contradictory evidence concerning how these devices (and apps on them) can benefit and/or hinder child development (e.g.…”

“…During the development of the THLE, two items were devised that focused not on the THLE (on activities concerning adulttoddler interaction) but instead on toddler television watching as a kind of 'displacement activity' (e.g. Dore et al, 2020) from the interactions that promote learning. These two items were developed alongside the THLE items in order to equip the ECCE study with the ability to describe other things that toddlers may have been doing other than engaging in interactions linked to learning and development.…”