Left to Their Own Devices? A Mixed Methods Study Exploring the Impacts of Smartphone Use on Children’s Outdoor Experiences

Abstract

The growing use of smartphones has been pointed out as one of the main reasons for the decrease in children’s outdoor time. However, there is still a gap in our understanding of how smartphone use affects children’s outdoor experiences and activities. The aim of the study is to explore children’s dependency on their smartphones, what smartphone functions children use when outdoors and how smartphone use affects children’s outdoor experiences. The study uses a mixed methods design which implements interviews with a small sample of children (N = 34) in order to help develop a questionnaire for a larger sample (N = 1148). Both datasets are included in the analysis with a complimentary perspective. The results suggest that children are highly dependent on having their smartphones available as an integrated part of their lives. However, smartphones also create favorable conditions for rich and valuable outdoor lives by expanding children’s and parents’ sense of security, children’s outdoor sociality, and children’s opportunities to mold their outdoor experiences. We stress that children’s passion for the digital world needs to be reconsidered as not ‘all bad’, but more as a condition in modern children’s lives and an asset to embrace in future strategies for actively engaging children in outdoor activities.

Factors influencing smart device addiction among preschool children: An extended protection-risk model perspective

“…When taking part in outdoor activities, people are more likely to engage face-to-face, thus, reducing the use of connected devices and social media, thereby lowering the risk of Internet addiction (Estévez et al, 2017;Helms et al, 2019;Diotaiuti et al, 2022). This is also true in the case of families, where the more time children spend outdoors, the less time they spend using screen devices (Patten et al, 2017;Hasanen et al, 2021;Nielsen and Arvidsen, 2021). Children's behavior is shaped by family practices (Plowman et al, 2010;Adebar, 2018).…”

Associations Between Nature Exposure, Screen Use, and Parent-Child Relations: A Scoping Review

“…Participants of intervention studies perceived nature-based programs as either directly beneficial to relational wellbeing [67,68] or effective in promoting family engagement in nature-based recreation through the reduction of perceived individual and family-level barriers [66]. Although parents commonly reported inclinations towards screen-based activities as a barrier to children's engagement with nature, parents also noted that their children's use of mobile phones during nature exploration facilitated or maintained parent-child communication, an important component of parentchild relational wellbeing [67,72]. Through the affordances of portable, connected technologies, young people were able to negotiate personal autonomy whilst maintaining their own and their parents' sense of safety.…”

“…A range of methodological limitations pertaining to study sample and design were reported by eligible studies. Small sample sizes [66,68,72,74], under-representation of fathers [67,68,79], non-random sampling [75] as well as the range of limitations pertaining to the subjective nature of self-report and proxy measures [66,70,75,77,78,79] were commonly identified. Limitations around causality [75,77,78,79] and study generalizability [53,67,68,71,74,77] characterized the literature.…”

“…This review contributes nuanced perspectives to the broader health-behavior literature that typically situates children's screen use and outdoor time in the context of sedentary and active lifestyle behaviors. The displacement hypothesis has widely been drawn on to rationalize that the increasing prevalence and uptake of screen media is the main reason for reduced time children spend on other activities like playing outdoors [72]. Across these studies, the unique influence of environments characterized by features of nature is often overlooked [45].…”

“…Mirroring findings from preliminary review searches and consistent with the conceptual and methodological heterogeneities characterizing the broader literature, eligible publications adopted diverse research approaches and operationalizations of the key review themes (see Table 2). Although methodologically diverse, most publications investigated correlates or predictors of child [53,65,70,71,72,73,74] or family [66,68,69] engagement with nature with a focus on barriers and facilitators. One ecological momentary assessment [76] and two cross-sectional studies [77,79] positioned relevant constructs in the context of children's physical activity and sedentary lifestyle behaviors, and the one longitudinal study focused on youth mental health [78].…”