The Role of Screen Media in Early Childhood Development and Parental Influence on Children’s Screen Exposure and Use

Abstract

The over-arching goals of this thesis were to investigate parental influences on preschool children’s screen exposure and to investigate the role of screen media in early childhood development. Studies 1 and 2 investigated the predictors of total screen time on a weekday for children when they were 2 years and 4.5 years of age. Higher screen time at 2 years was significantly associated with higher TV exposure, viewing adult-directed content, having no screen time rules, ethnicity, and not attending non-parental childcare. Parent always co-viewing with their child was negatively associated with 2-year-olds’ screen time. Higher screen time at 4.5 years was significantly associated with higher TV exposure, TV at meal-times, symptoms of inattention/hyperactivity, and ethnicity, while having screen time rules and reading to the child daily were negatively associated with screen time. As six of the significant predictors of screen time identified in Studies 1 and 2 are media parenting practices, and modifiable, this information may benefit parents wishing to reduce their preschool children’s screen time. Study 3 identified relationships between TV at meal-times at 4 years and poorer cool executive functions at 4.5 years, and high TV exposure at 2 years and poorer hot executive functions at 4.5 years. Neither hot nor cool executive functions were significantly associated with screen time. Study 4 investigated associations between key markers of high-quality parent-infant interactions (parental responsiveness, scaffolding, directiveness, and co-ordinated joint attention), infant vocabulary, and “technoference”, which is distraction from interpersonal activities due to use of mobile screen devices. Using SEM, the frequency of audible notifications negatively predicted infant vocabulary, and this relationship was fully mediated by parental directiveness. This novel finding indicates that there may be a “carryover” effect whereby parents’ habitual use of mobile technology may affect parent-child interactions even when parents are not using their phones. Overall, this thesis highlights the pivotal role that parents play in creating the media environment that may facilitate or constrain their preschool child’s access to screens, and suggests that in today’s media environment, environmental screen media may be more important to the development of executive functions and vocabulary than screen time.