skip to main content
10.1145/3290607.3311745acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageschiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
panel

Moving Beyond "The Great Screen Time Debate" in the Design of Technology for Children

Published: 02 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Despite pervasive messaging about the dangers of "screen time," children and families remain avid consumers of digital media and other technologies. Given competing narratives heralding the promise or the peril of children's technology, how can designers best serve this audience? In this panel, we bring together world experts from: children's media and communications, pediatrics and human development, HCI and design, and industry product development to debate the validity of pundits' concerns and discuss designers' opportunities and obligations with respect to creating products for this user group. Panelists bring diverse--and sometimes conflicting--perspectives on the conceptual frameworks that are most appropriate for understanding family technology use, the ethical considerations designers should bring to this space, and the most pressing needs for future research. Grounding the conversation in guidance from the audience, panelists will share their visions for a research agenda that separates moral panics from credible concerns and promotes the design of positive digital experiences for children and families.

References

[1]
2011. Teens' parents and their technology profile. Technical Report. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/ 2011/11/09/teens-parents-and-their-technology-profile/
[2]
2017. The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight 2017, Common Sense Media. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-kids-age-zero-to-eight-2017
[3]
American Psychological Association et al. 2005. Resolution on violence in video games and interactive media.
[4]
Alicia Blum-Ross and Sonia Livingstone. 2018. The Trouble with "Screen Time" Rules. In Digital Parenting: The Challenges for Families in the Digital Age. 179--187. http://www.nordicom.gu.se/sites/default/files/kapitel-pdf/16_blum-ross_livingstone.pdf
[5]
Melissa N. Callaghan and Stephanie M. Reich. 2018. Are educational preschool apps designed to teach? An analysis of the app market. Learning, Media and Technology 43, 3 (2018), 280--293.
[6]
Malte Elson, Christopher J. Ferguson, Mary Gregerson, Jerri Lynn Hogg, James Ivory, Dana Klisanin, Patrick M. Markey, Deborah Nichols, Shahbaz Siddiqui, and June Wilson. 2019. Do Policy Statements on Media Effects Faithfully Represent the Science? Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (2019), 2515245918811301.
[7]
Freya Geinger, Michel Vandenbroeck, and Griet Roets. 2014. Parenting as a performance: Parents as consumers and (de) constructors of mythic parenting and childhood ideals. Childhood 21, 4 (2014), 488--501.
[8]
Alexis Hiniker, Sharon S. Heung, Sungsoo (Ray) Hong, and Julie A. Kientz. 2018. Coco's Videos. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '18. 1--13.
[9]
Alexis Hiniker, Bongshin Lee, Julie A. Kientz, and Jenny S. Radesky. 2018. Let's play! Digital and analog play patterns between preschoolers and parents. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI '18.
[10]
A. R. Lauricella, D. P. Cingel, L. Beaudoin-Ryan, M. B. Robb, M. Saphir, and E. A. Wartella. 2016. The Common Sense Census: Plugged-in parents of tweens and teens. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media (2016).
[11]
Melissa Mazmanian and Simone Lanette. 2017. "Okay, One More Episode". In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing - CSCW '17. 2273--2286.
[12]
Marisa Meyer, Victoria Adkins, Nalingna Yuan, Heidi M. Weeks, Yung-Ju Chang, and Jenny Radesky. 2019. Advertising in Young Children's Apps: A Content Analysis. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics 40, 1 (2019), 32--39.
[13]
Department of Health and Social Care. 2019. UK Chief Medical Officers' (CMO) Commentary on 'Screen-based activities and children and young people's mental health and psychosocial wellbeing: A Systematic Map of Reviews'. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews
[14]
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. 2019. The Health Impacts of Screen Time - A Guide for Clinicians and Parents. (2019). https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/health-impacts-screen-time-guide-clinicians-parents
[15]
Jenny S. Radesky, Elizabeth Peacock-Chambers, Barry Zuckerman, and Michael Silverstein. 2016. Use of Mobile Technology to Calm Upset Children. JAMA Pediatrics 170, 4 (apr 2016), 397.
[16]
Pamela Wisniewski, Haiyan Jia, Na Wang, Saijing Zheng, Heng Xu, Mary Beth Rosson, and John M. Carroll. 2015. Resilience mitigates the negative effects of adolescent internet addiction and online risk exposure. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 4029--4038.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Novel Profiles of Family Media Use: Latent Profile Analysis (Preprint)JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting10.2196/59215Online publication date: 13-Jun-2024
  • (2024)“I finally felt I had the tools to control these urges”: Empowering Students to Achieve Their Device Use Goals With the Reduce Digital Distraction WorkshopProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642946(1-23)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • (2023)Early literacy going digital: Interweaving formal and informal literacy learning through digital mediaJournal of Early Childhood Literacy10.1177/14687984231189988Online publication date: 3-Aug-2023
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Moving Beyond "The Great Screen Time Debate" in the Design of Technology for Children

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI EA '19: Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2019
    3673 pages
    ISBN:9781450359719
    DOI:10.1145/3290607
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 02 May 2019

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. child
    2. child-computer interaction
    3. families
    4. parenting
    5. screen time

    Qualifiers

    • Panel

    Conference

    CHI '19
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

    Upcoming Conference

    CHI 2025
    ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 26 - May 1, 2025
    Yokohama , Japan

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)70
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2
    Reflects downloads up to 22 Jan 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Novel Profiles of Family Media Use: Latent Profile Analysis (Preprint)JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting10.2196/59215Online publication date: 13-Jun-2024
    • (2024)“I finally felt I had the tools to control these urges”: Empowering Students to Achieve Their Device Use Goals With the Reduce Digital Distraction WorkshopProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642946(1-23)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)Early literacy going digital: Interweaving formal and informal literacy learning through digital mediaJournal of Early Childhood Literacy10.1177/14687984231189988Online publication date: 3-Aug-2023
    • (2023)Let Kids Wonder, Question and Make Mistakes: How the Designers of Children’s Technology Think about Child Well-beingProceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3585088.3589371(310-321)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2023
    • (2022)Children’s Internet Use, Self-Reported Life Satisfaction, and Parental Mediation in Europe: An Analysis of the EU Kids Online DatasetFrontiers in Psychology10.3389/fpsyg.2021.69817612Online publication date: 11-Jan-2022
    • (2022)Perspectives of Preschool Children’s Parents on Early Childhood Education During COVID-19 PandemicCOVID-19 Pandemi Döneminde Okul Öncesi Çocukların Ebeveynlerinin Erken Çocukluk Eğitimine Bakış AçılarıEge Eğitim Dergisi10.12984/egeefd.103558123(1-22)Online publication date: 30-Sep-2022
    • (2022)Fathers, Young Children and Technology: Changes in Device Use and Family Dynamics during the COVID-19 UK LockdownProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35551886:CSCW2(1-32)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
    • (2022)The Goldilocks level of supportInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102869166:COnline publication date: 1-Oct-2022
    • (2021)Playing Cool - Winter Weather's Influence on Location-Based GamingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34746695:CHI PLAY(1-16)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2021
    • (2021)The Kids Are / Not / Sort of All Right*Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445541(1-14)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    HTML Format

    View this article in HTML Format.

    HTML Format

    Media

    Figures

    Other

    Tables

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media