Skip to main content

Can I Talk to Mickey Mouse Through My Phone? Children’s Understanding of the Functions of Mobile Phones

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Design, User Experience, and Usability: Design for Contemporary Technological Environments (HCII 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12781))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 2218 Accesses

Abstract

Mobile phones have become one of the most important and popular media in our daily life. With the progress of technology, the functions of mobile phones are becoming more and more diversified, and some of the new functions seem almost fantastical. As a result, the present study was conducted to examine children’s and adults’ beliefs about the functions of mobile phones. Forty 4-year-olds and thirty-seven adults made reality judgments about real and fantastical functions of mobile phone. Results indicated that 4-year-olds and adults judged fantastical events similarly, but children underestimated the reality of real functions of mobile phone. We also found that, unlike adults, children’s beliefs about both the real and fantastical functions of mobile phones were significantly related with their experience of those mobile phone functions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Schüz, J.: Mobile phone use and exposures in children. Bioelectromagnetics 26(S7), S45–S50 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Silver, L.: Smartphone ownership is growing rapidly around the world, but not always equally. https://www.pewresearch.org/. Accessed 25 Dec 2020

  3. Rideout, V., Robb, M.B.: The common sense census: media use by kids age zero to eight, 2020. Common Sense Media (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Radesky, J.S., Schumacher, J., Zuckerman, B.: Mobile and interactive media use by young children: the good, the bad, and the unknown. Pediatrics 135(1), 1–3 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Eisen, S., Lillard, A.S.: Young children’s thinking about touchscreens versus other media devices. In: Paper Presented at the Cognitive Development Society Meeting, Austin, TX (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Flavell, J.H., Flavell, E.R., Green, F.L., Korfmacher, J.E.: Do young children think of television images as pictures or real objects? J. Broadcast. Electron. Media 34(4), 399–419 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Goldstein, T.R., Bloom, P.: Characterizing characters: how children make sense of realistic acting. Cogn. Dev. 34, 39–50 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Subbotsky, E.: Early rationality and magical thinking in preschoolers: space and time. Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 12(1), 97–108 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Rosengren, K.S., Hickling, A.K.: Seeing is believing: children’s explanations of commonplace, magical, and extraordinary transformations. Child Dev. 65(6), 1605–1626 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Phelps, K.E., Woolley, J.D.: The form and function of young children’s magical beliefs. Dev. Psychol. 30(3), 385–394 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Subbotsky, E.V.: Foundations of the Mind: Children’s Understanding of Reality. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Rosengren, K.S., Johnson, C.N., Harris, P.L.: Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2000)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  13. Subbotsky, E., Hysted, C., Jones, N.: Watching films with magical content facilitates creativity in children. Percept. Mot. Skills 111(1), 261–277 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. DeLoache, J.S., Miller, K.F., Rosengren, K.S.: The credible shrinking room: very young children’s performance with symbolic and nonsymbolic relations. Psychol. Sci. 8(4), 308–313 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hood, B., Gjersoe, N.L., Bloom, P.: Do children think that duplicating the body also duplicates the mind? Cognition 125(3), 466–474 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Shtulman, A., Carey, S.: Improbable or impossible? How children reason about the possibility of extraordinary events. Child Dev. 78(3), 1015–1032 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Li, H., Boguszewski, K., Lillard, A.S.: Can that really happen? Children’s knowledge about the reality status of fantastical events in television. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 139, 99–114 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Carrick, N., Quas, J.A.: Effects of discrete emotions on young children’s ability to discern fantasy and reality. Dev. Psychol. 42(6), 1278–1288 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Samuels, A., Taylor, M.: Children’s ability to distinguish fantasy events from real-life events. Br. J. Dev. Psychol. 12(4), 417–427 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Wright, J.C., Huston, A.C., Reitz, A.L., Piemyat, S.: Young children’s perceptions of television reality: determinants and developmental differences. Dev. Psychol. 30(2), 229–239 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Cook, C., Sobel, D.M.: Children’s beliefs about the fantasy/reality status of hypothesized machines. Dev. Sci. 14(1), 1–8 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Woolley, J.D., Ma, L., Lopez-Mobilia, G.: Development of the use of conversational cues to assess reality status. J. Cogn. Dev. 12(4), 537–555 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Li, H., Liu, T., Woolley, J.D., Zhang, P.: Reality status judgments of real and fantastical events in children’s prefrontal cortex: an fNIRS study. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 13, 444 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Woolley, J.D.: Thinking about fantasy: are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults? Child Dev. 68(6), 991–1011 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Woolley, J.D., Boerger, E.A., Markman, A.B.: A visit from the candy witch: factors influencing young children’s belief in a novel fantastical being. Dev. Sci. 7(4), 456–468 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Han, S., Jiang, Y., Humphreys, G.W.: Watching cartoons activates the medial prefrontal cortex in children. Chin. Sci. Bull. 52(24), 3371–3375 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Li, H., Subrahmanyam, K., Bai, X., Xie, X., Liu, T.: Viewing fantastical events versus touching fantastical events: short-term effects on children’s inhibitory control. Child Dev. 89(1), 48–57 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Li, H., Hsueh, Y., Yu, H., Kitzmann, K.M.: Viewing fantastical events in animated television shows: Immediate effects on Chinese preschoolers’ executive function. Front. Psychol. 11, 3423 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Woolley, J.D., Cox, V.: Development of beliefs about storybook reality. Dev. Sci. 10(5), 681–693 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Woolley, J.D., Ghossainy, M.E.: Revisiting the fantasy–reality distinction: children as naïve skeptics. Child Dev. 84(5), 1496–1510 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (CCNU20QN039).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hui Li .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Li, H., Woolley, J.D., Yu, H. (2021). Can I Talk to Mickey Mouse Through My Phone? Children’s Understanding of the Functions of Mobile Phones. In: Soares, M.M., Rosenzweig, E., Marcus, A. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability: Design for Contemporary Technological Environments. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12781. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78227-6_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78227-6_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-78226-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-78227-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics