Mobile and Interactive Media Use by Young

Children: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown

Jenny S. Radesky, MD, Jayna Schumacher, MD, Barry Zuckerman, MD

The use of interactive screen media such as smartphones and tablets by

young children is increasing rapidly. However, research regarding the
impact of this portable and instantly accessible source of screen time on
learning, behavior, and family dynamics has lagged considerably behind its
rate of adoption. Pediatric guidelines specically regarding mobile device
use by young children have not yet been formulated, other than recent
suggestions that a limited amount of educational interactive media use
may be acceptable for children aged ,2 years.1 New guidance is needed
because mobile media differs from television in its multiple modalities
(eg, videos, games, educational apps), interactive capabilities, and near
ubiquity in childrens lives. Recommendations for use by infants, toddlers,
and preschool-aged children are especially crucial, because effects of
screen time are potentially more pronounced in this group. The aim of this
commentary is to review the existing literature, discuss future research
directions, and suggest preliminary guidance for families.

EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERACTIVE MEDIA USE: EVIDENCE AND THEORY

Educational Value
Although well-researched television programs such as Sesame Street or
Blues Clues can promote early academic skills in preschool-aged children,
children ,30 months cannot learn from television and videos as they do
from real-life interactions.2 Interactive media, on the other hand, allow for
contingent responses to childrens actions and thus may facilitate more
retention of taught material. For example, socially contingent media
(ie, with appropriate content, timing, and intensity) such as videophone
apps are just as effective as real-life encounters in teaching language to
24 month olds,3 but otherwise, published research on whether infants and
toddlers can learn from interactive screens is scant.
Promising research suggests that interactive media such as learn-to-read
apps and electronic books (e-books) may increase early literacy skills4 by
providing practice with letters, phonics, and word recognition. E-books
can be useful in promoting vocabulary development and reading
comprehension and could be more engaging for young children via digital
scaffolds (eg, oral narration, synchronous text highlighting, and embedded
sound effects, animations, or games). However, such extraneous e-book

PEDIATRICS Volume 135, number 1, January 2015

Division of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics,

Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Dr Radesky conceptualized the article and cowrote, reviewed,

and revised the manuscript; Dr Schumacher cowrote,
reviewed, and revised the manuscript; Dr. Zuckerman
conceptualized the article and reviewed and revised the
manuscript; and all authors approved the nal manuscript as
submitted.
www.pediatrics.org/cgi/doi/10.1542/peds.2014-2251
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2014-2251
Accepted for publication Sep 5, 2014
Address correspondence to Jenny S. Radesky, Boston Medical
Center, Vose 4, 88 E Newton St, Boston, MA 02118. E-mail: jenny.
[email protected]
PEDIATRICS (ISSN Numbers: Print, 0031-4005; Online, 10984275).
Copyright 2015 by the American Academy of Pediatrics
FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The authors have indicated they have
no nancial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.
FUNDING: Supported by Physician Faculty Development Grant 6
D5CHP20644 (to Dr Radesky).
POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated
they have no potential conicts of interest to disclose.

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PEDIATRICS PERSPECTIVES

enhancements have also been shown

to distract childrens attention from
the story and to interfere with comprehension.3 In other words, the
visual design, sound effects, and
touchscreen interface of interactive
media can either engage young children or distract them from educational content. A balance between the
2 is necessary to facilitate learning.

Distraction From Distress

The ability of mobile media to
effectively distract and entertain
young children is also a potential
benet of their use. Indeed,
smartphones and tablets are
increasingly used to help distract
children during anesthesia induction
or medical/surgical procedures.5
However, the use of mobile media to
occupy young children during daily
routines such as errands, car rides,
and eating out6 is becoming
a common behavioral regulation tool:
what the industry terms a shut-up
toy. Because young children need to
develop internal mechanisms of selfregulation, it needs to be determined
whether mobile device use, although
helpful in the short term, could be
detrimental to later social-emotional
outcomes when used as the principal
way in which children are taught to
calm themselves down.

Displacement of Activities
One mechanism by which heavy
television exposure negatively affects
child development is by displacing
language- and play-based interactions
with caregivers.7 The instant
accessibility and portability of mobile
devices make them potentially more
likely to displace human interactions
and other enriching activities.
Because thousands of apps are
marketed as educational (without
evidence for this claim), parents may
feel comfortable with this relative
increase in screen time. Although
interactive media are well suited to
teach concrete knowledge (so-called
skills and drills), other important
preacademic skills such as

self-regulation, empathy, social skills,

and problem-solving are primarily
learned through children exploring
the natural environment, interacting
with peers and caregivers, and
playing in unstructured, creative
ways. Moreover, interactive media use
by young children may displace
sensorimotor activities
(eg, manipulation, climbing, building)
that support development of visualmotor skills important to later
success in math and science.
Parents use of interactive media also
has the potential to distract from
parent-child interactions. Parent
media use usually involves work,
errands, or social or other content
requiring signicant information
processing, which makes it harder to
balance attention between devices
and managing child behavior.6 On the
other hand, videophone apps may
enhance interpersonal connections by
allowing children to maintain face-toface interactions with distant family
members or during military
deployment.

Context and Parent Engagement

Like traditional media use, child use of
mobile and interactive media does not
occur in a vacuum. Many factors,
including parenting style,
socioeconomic status, and child
temperament, modify the positive and
negative effects of media on childrens
behavior and development. Most
important is parent-child (or teacherchild3) interaction during media use:
ie, how we use technology rather than
the technologys qualities per se. Mobile
and interactive media have great
potential to promote learning through
joint engagement between caregivers
and children, by demonstrating ideas
for parent-child activities, or by
modeling teaching strategies (eg,
dialogic reading, phonetic, or sound
blending skills) with which low-literacy
parents may not be familiar.

Research Needs
Existing research is limited, and many
questions remain, such as
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At what age and what content can

young children start learning from
interactive media compared with
experiences in the real world?
What tablet enhancements facilitate the most learning at different
developmental stages?
Do children from low-literacy families benet more from apps that
engage the caregivers in the childs
learning experience?
Do children with self-regulation
problems, whose parents might use
media more to calm them down,
have better or worse outcomes as
a result?

PRELIMINARY GUIDANCE FOR PARENTS

Although much remains to be
researched, clinicians can specically
raise the issue of interactive/mobile
media use with parents of young
children; in fact, parent or child
mobile device use in the ofce
commonly presents opportunities for
teachable moments. As with
television, it is crucial to ask how
parents decide which technology and
content is best for their children and
how they monitor and set rules for
use. Violence on mobile media should
be avoided, and when encountered,
children should be helped to
understand it. Providers can
recommend age-appropriate,
educational content and suggest the
use of resources such as PBS Kids
(www.pbskids.org), Sesame
Workshop (www.sesameworkshop.
org), or Common Sense Media (www.
commonsensemedia.org) to guide
media choices. Parents should be
encouraged to try a game or app rst,
play it with the child, and ask the
child about it afterward to see what
he or she is learning. Clinicians
should strongly emphasize the
benets of parents and children using
interactive media together to enhance
its educational value.
In addition, asking about mobile/
interactive media use provides
a window into how parents help their

RADESKY et al

children learn to calm down and is an

opportunity to discuss how media
can either support or displace
important parent-child interactions
and play. Digital resources provided
by early childhood organizations such
as Resources for Early Learning
(www.resourcesforearlylearning.org)
or Zero to Three (www.zerotothree.
org) can provide parents with ideas
for other developmentally
appropriate activities to pursue with
their child, and provide alternative
strategies for teaching a child to selfregulate when distressed or bored.
Television has had a clearly
documented impact, both positive
and negative, on children. Mobile
devices, because of their portability
and interactive components, are
introducing media into all aspects of
childrens experience and deserve
serious attention and research. Until
more is known, pediatric providers
can offer guidance on preserving
quality, connected family interactions,
whether through unplugged time or

PEDIATRICS Volume 135, number 1, January 2015

a designated family hour, and how to

establish healthy childhood media
habits from early childhood.

2. Anderson DR, Hanson KG. What

researchers have learned about toddlers
and television. Zero Three. 2013;33(4):
410

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

3. Roseberry S, Hirsh-Pasek K, Golinkoff RM.

Skype me! Socially contingent interactions
help toddlers learn language. Child Dev.
2014;85(3):956970

We thank Dr Michael Rich, MD,

Director of the Harvard Center on
Media and Child Health; Dr Natalia
Kucirkova, PhD, Faculty of Education
and Language Studies, The Open
University, Milton Keynes, United
Kingdom; Dr Lori Takeuchi, PhD,
Senior Director and Research
Scientist at the Joan Ganz Cooney
Center at Sesame Workshop; and
Dr Michael H. Levine, PhD, Executive
Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney
Center at Sesame Workshop, for
their thoughtful review of this
manuscript.

4. Kucirkova N. iPads in early education:

separating assumptions and evidence
[published online ahead of print July 8, 2014].
Front Psychol. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00715.
5. McQueen A, Cress C, Tothy A. Using
a tablet computer during pediatric
procedures: a case series and review of
the apps. Pediatr Emerg Care. 2012;
28(7):712714

REFERENCES

6. Radesky JS, Kistin CJ, Zuckerman B, et al.

Patterns of mobile device use by
caregivers and children during meals in
fast food restaurants. Pediatrics. 2014;
133(4). Available at: www.pediatrics.org/
cgi/content/full/133/4/e843

1. Christakis DA. Interactive media use at

younger than the age of 2 years: time to
rethink the American Academy of
Pediatrics guideline? JAMA Pediatr. 2014;
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7. Kirkorian HL, Pempek TA, Murphy LA,

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Mobile and Interactive Media Use by Young Children: The Good, the Bad, and
the Unknown
Jenny S. Radesky, Jayna Schumacher and Barry Zuckerman
Pediatrics 2015;135;1; originally published online December 29, 2014;
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2014-2251
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PEDIATRICS is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A monthly

publication, it has been published continuously since 1948. PEDIATRICS is owned, published,
and trademarked by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 141 Northwest Point Boulevard, Elk
Grove Village, Illinois, 60007. Copyright 2015 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. All
rights reserved. Print ISSN: 0031-4005. Online ISSN: 1098-4275.

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Mobile and Interactive Media Use by Young Children: The Good, the Bad, and
the Unknown
Jenny S. Radesky, Jayna Schumacher and Barry Zuckerman
Pediatrics 2015;135;1; originally published online December 29, 2014;
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2014-2251

The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is
located on the World Wide Web at:
/content/135/1/1.full.html

PEDIATRICS is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A monthly

publication, it has been published continuously since 1948. PEDIATRICS is owned,
published, and trademarked by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 141 Northwest Point
Boulevard, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, 60007. Copyright 2015 by the American Academy
of Pediatrics. All rights reserved. Print ISSN: 0031-4005. Online ISSN: 1098-4275.

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