The impact of parents’ smartphone use on language development in young children

Abstract

Smartphone use is ubiquitous in the lives of parents, and an emerging area of research is investigating how parental smartphone use during parent-child interactions affects children's language outcomes. Findings point toward negative outcomes in language development, but it is less clear what processes affect language outcomes. Gaze following, parental responsiveness, and joint attention are also reduced when parents use their smartphone, and all are critical to language development. In this article, we propose that these factors may mediate the effects of technoference due to parents' smartphone use on language development in children from birth to 5 years. Because of methodological differences in the limited research conducted on this topic, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about this proposal. We discuss these considerations and suggest directions for the field.

La technoférence parentale : Revue de littérature des liens avec la qualité de la parentalité et le développement socioémotionnel du jeune enfant.

“…Avec l’augmentation de l’utilisation des appareils technologiques, la réduction ou le retrait de l’attention envers l’enfant dû à la technoférence parentale pourrait être une entrave à la qualité de la parentalité. Cela pourrait également être un facteur de vulnérabilité pour le développement cognitif des enfants, tel que l’acquisition du langage (Morris et al, 2022), et pour le développement socioémotionnel (compétences, comportements, attachement). En effet, ces aspects du développement reposent en partie sur la qualité (attention, réactivité, réceptivité et sensibilité parentale notamment) de la relation parent-enfant (Mackay et al, 2022).…”

Bambini, schermi e benessere. Indicazioni dalla ricerca, motivazioni dei genitori e ruolo del pediatra di famiglia

“…Le conclusioni dei ricercatori attestano che l'uso frequente di strumenti digitali da parte delle madri riduce la qualità della comunicazione madre-bambino e ha un forte impatto sulla regolazione emotiva dei bambini e sulla qualità della comunicazione espressivo-emotiva [8]. Attenzione, co-regolazione e responsività, che sono particolarmente significative nei primi anni di vita del bambino, sono alterate dalle continue e ripetute interruzioni nella relazione diretta tra bambino e caregiver; questo ha un impatto sullo sviluppo cognitivo, emotivo e anche sullo sviluppo del linguaggio [9].…”

Embedding Play to Enrich Physical Therapy

“…Parents’ and therapists’ attention at any given moment is potentially fragmented by many things: other responsibilities, worries about the immediate and distant future, and constant technoference, defined as cell or smart-phone disruptions during social interactions [ 97 ]. In the parent–child relationship, these interruptions can lead to increased child distress, disrupted infant social-emotional regulation, lowered child inhibitory responses, and impaired contingency-related learning of both language and social cues [ 97 , 98 , 99 ]. Simply put, attentional disruptions interfere with the ability to recognize and respond to a child’s cues during play or any therapeutic interaction.…”