How young children’s play is shaped through common iPad applications: a study of 2 and 4–5 year-olds

Abstract

Digital devices such as iPads are prevalent in children's play from an early age. How this shapes young children's play is an area of considerable debate without any clear consensus on how different forms of play are brought into the iPad interaction. In this study, we examined 98 play activities of children in two preschool settings, featuring 2 and 4-5year-olds, their play with iPads and non-digital artefacts. Three analytical approaches were used: an index built on a digital play framework [

Teleonomy, legibility, and diversity: Do we need more “proxynomics”?

“…He describes play as “loosening” educational proxies and argues for a world where we embrace looseness to avoid proxy failure. A further key insight is that “as children play with and socialize around the tools and technologies in their environment (Samuelsson, Price, & Jewitt, 2022),” play allows highly flexible or “culturally appropriate learning” even in rapidly changing cultural environments. This hints at another way in which play might award resilience toward proxy failure.…”

Leveraging Play for Learning and Development: Incorporating Cultural‐Evolutionary Insights into Early Educational Practices

“…Play, exploration, and the playful learning approaches promoted in this paper can thus be approaches to education that are well‐suited for learning in the contemporary age. Further efforts from researchers and practitioners can jointly elaborate on the potential of this approach by also considering how a playful approach is shaped by current technologies (Samuelsson, Price, & Jewitt, 2022; Singer & Singer, 2007). As scientific fields are now uncovering the role of children's exploration, play, and the associated learning mechanisms, it is a great time to map these on to existing play‐based educational practices and use these insights to create educational futures of tomorrow.…”

Navigating proxy failures in education: Learning from human and animal play

“…Crucially, because the focus of play is not on any external goal, engaging in play and related exploratory behavior trains the organism for uncertain outcomes in unstable environments (Bjorklund, 2022). For humans, this takes a cultural turn as children play with and socialize around the tools and technologies in their environment (Samuelsson, Price, & Jewitt, 2022), leading to culturally appropriate learning potential as a by-product of this engagement (Samuelsson, 2023). Thus, play provides a valuable perspective on how less-regulated activities can lead to learning outcomes.…”