Two studies collaboratively investigated the influence of joint media engagement (JME) on preschoolers' acquisition of Chinese characters through touchscreens. In Study 1, 76 children (32 boys; M +/- SD = 68.95 +/- 4.11 months) were randomly allocated to three groups: touchscreen with JME, touchscreen without JME, and video groups. The findings indicated that JME significantly facilitated children's learning of Chinese characters via touchscreens. Study 2 further examined the type of scaffolding in JME that could most effectively support children's character acquisition from touchscreens. A total of 75 children (38 boys; M +/- SD = 71.36 +/- 4.19 months) were randomly assigned to three groups: cognitive, affective, and technical scaffolding groups. Results revealed that cognitive scaffolding provided the greatest enhancement for JME-assisted touchscreen learning outcomes. Collectively, the two studies underscore that JME can substantially advance children's learning of Chinese characters through touchscreens. Moreover, Study 2 showed that cognitive scaffolding during the JME process yields the most significant advantages for learners. These findings highlight the importance of parents' and educators' active engagement in discussions about educational content with their children when utilizing touchscreen devices for learning.
Social media play a central role in adolescents' everyday lives and exert meaningful influence on their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Because of this influence potential, these platforms are increasingly leveraged for prosocial digital campaigns aimed at promoting positive youth development. Yet, little is known about how adolescents' own influence expertise can inform such efforts. To address this gap, we partnered with 70 adolescents (12-14) as co-experts in a five-day participatory program. Adolescents completed an adapted photovoice task and co-created a prosocial social media campaign. We examined adolescents' influence perspectives across three roles: as content consumers, creators, and strategists. As consumers, adolescents identified three influential content types: relatable entertainment that gratifies short-term emotional needs, entertaining information that stimulates learning and inspires real-life actions, and parasocial relationships that shape perspectives, identity, and emotional experiences. As creators, adolescents valued opportunities for authentic self-expression and creative autonomy, while also responding to external rewards such as social validation and social media capital. As strategists, they designed peer-focused influence approaches that mirrored their own preferences, combining entertaining formats with concrete benefits and trusted sources. Together, these findings demonstrate how adolescents' social media expertise can inform more collaborative and potentially resonant prosocial campaigns for youth.
Most research on children's media focuses on audiovisual formats, but little is known about how children and families engage with audio-only media, such as podcasts. This gap is important to address given the rise in podcast popularity and its potential as an accessible, screen-free learning tool for families. Podcasts are easily scalable and can serve as a low-cost, high-quality resource for families with limited means. To explore how families use podcasts, we conducted a virtual, mixed-methods study with 110 caregivers and children aged 4 to 8 living in low-income households. We investigated how families listened to and engaged with publicly available children's podcasts over a 6-week period, and how podcast design features promoted engagement. Findings from caregiver surveys and in-depth interviews reveal that families easily integrated podcasts into their routines, creating opportunities for shared listening in screen-free contexts. Additionally, findings indicate that certain podcast design features, such as interactive prompts, relatable characters, and serial narratives, helped sustain children's interest and fostered co-listening and joint media engagement. This engagement included conversations and playful, podcast-related activities that can enhance learning. This study suggests that with intentional design, podcasts have the potential to be a powerful and accessible tool for family engagement.
In an era of digitally saturated environments, parents increasingly encounter challenges in regulating their children's exposure to digital media violence. Using a mixed-method approach, this research presents two studies that examine the relationship between Vietnamese parents' perceptions of children's exposure to digital media violence and their mediation strategies. Qualitative interviews (N = 41) reveal that parents' presumed influence prompts mediation strategies, including restriction, permission rule, explanation, and peer consultation. Notably, parents report using corporal punishment to enforce compliance. Representative survey data (N = 1,465) indicate that parents' reports of children's media exposure predict presumed influence, which in turn is associated with restriction, permission rules, and explanatory communication. Permission rule communication is positively associated with corporal punishment, while explanation shows a negative association. However, these relationships are significant only among rural parents, highlighting the intersection of parental mediation and traditional child-rearing norms.
Children spend an average of 50 minutes per day watching films, yet hardly any research focuses on how this can be meaningful for them. This qualitative study sheds light on whether watching films could lead to novel insights about life. Fifty-five Dutch children aged 7-12 years participated in duo interviews after watching the Disney film Moana (2016), a coming-of-age film that portrays character strengths and includes societally relevant messages. Findings indicate that children felt inspired by Moana's perseverance, bravery, and teamwork, and connected these strengths to their own experiences. Older children identified with Moana's coming-of-age journey. The film's messages about strengths and norms not only aligned with values children already held, but also validated these beliefs, creating a sense of resonance. Moreover, through perspective-taking, children understood the characters' motivations and growth, enabling them to empathize with their mistakes and reevaluate earlier judgments. Several children reflected on broader societal themes, such as environmental responsibility and beauty standards. These findings suggest that films can help children reflect on personal and societal themes, offering meaningful opportunities for growth.
This study conceptualizes children's digital (dis)connection as a relational and moral practice embedded in the intertwined structures of family, school, and peers. Using a 360 degrees interview approach, this study situates children, parents, and teachers within relational clusters to examine how digital (dis)connectionis negotiated across overlapping social contexts. Drawing on Giddens' Structuration Theory the analysis demonstrates that children's decisions about when and how to disconnect are not simply the product of adult regulation or individual self-control but recursive processes through which social structures are both reproduced and transformed. Across contexts, shared moral frameworks of attentiveness, respect, balance, and responsibility shape how disconnection is practiced, interpreted, and justified. Children actively reinterpret these frameworks through their own reasoning and emotional engagement, turning externally imposed rules into reflexive acts of self-governance. By examining how children navigate, comply with, and contest moral expectations surrounding digital (dis)connection, this study advances an understanding of digital agency as relationally constituted and morally grounded. The findings invite a shift from protectionist or developmental framings of children's digital lives toward relational and dialogical approaches that recognize children as active moral agents in co-creating thesocial norms that organize everyday (dis)connection.
For tweens/teens in the United States, media represents a central element of their lives. However, researchers know very little about the profiles of media users in these age groups, considering their engagement in media activities. To address this, the present study employed a latent profile analysis examining the frequency of engagement for seven media activities from both the 2019 and 2021 versions of the Common Sense Census, which use national representative samples of preadolescents (8 to 12 years) and adolescents (13 to 18 years) in the United States. Using the Differential Susceptibility to Media Effects Model as a framework, we also tested predictors of profile membership. For each wave, a four-profile solution was selected. Two profiles were consistent across waves: Diversified media users, and traditional media users, while each wave had two unique profiles: Social media users and social media abstainers for 2019 data, and moderate media users and high techers for 2021. Importantly, developmental (e.g. age), dispositional (e.g. gender and race/ethnicity identification), and social (e.g. parent marital status) susceptibilities were predictors of profile membership.
Digital social games provide children with increasingly prominent spaces for self-presentation and peer interaction, yet how role-playing and peer recognition shape identity work in these settings has received limited attention. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory, this study examines how role-playing in digital social games relates to children's identity construction. We conducted face-to-face semi-structured interviews with 41 elementary school students aged 8-13 from four public schools in China. Thematic analysis suggests that children engage in identity exploration by experimenting with diverse virtual roles and by flexibly switching between identities across in-game and offline contexts. Peer recognition further shapes identity affirmation by providing cues through which children appraise self-worth and a sense of being valued and accepted by peers. These findings offer insight into the mechanisms linking role-play, peer recognition, and children's identity work in networked play, and they provide a foundation for future cross-cultural and longitudinal research.
This study examined whether daily variation in maternal addictive smartphone use predicted daily variation in child addictive smartphone use on the following day and tested child gender as a moderator. Data were collected from 74 fourth graders (mean age = 9.2 years; 69% were girls) and their mothers living in Hong Kong, China. On each of 5 consecutive days, children and mothers completed online questionnaires in the evening about their own smartphone use during the day. A multilevel linear model within the Bayesian framework revealed both within- and between-person associations between maternal and child reports of smartphone use: On days when mothers used smartphones more addictively than usual (compared to their cross-day averages), their children used smartphones more addictively than usual (compared to their cross-day averages) on the following day. Moreover, mothers who generally had more addictive smartphone use (compared to other mothers in the sample) had children who generally had more addictive smartphone use (compared to other children in the sample). Child gender did not emerge as a moderator, however. Findings highlighted the roles of parents in understanding day-to-day variation in children's addictive smartphone use and the importance of helping parents monitor and manage their smartphone use.
This study explores a divergence in discourses about, and institutional approaches to, digital technology use in public and private K-12 schools in the United States. Offering a critical thematic analysis of the technology mission statements published on the websites of urban Waldorf schools and neighboring public schools in six U.S. cities during the Covid-19 pandemic, we show how public schools described digital technologies as essential to students' learning, wellbeing, and career readiness while neighboring Waldorf schools eschewed the same technologies and positioned themselves as a sanctuary from screens. Bridging perspectives from critical scholarship on educational technology, disconnection studies, and the sociology of education and parenting, this article suggests that a "disconnection divide" has emerged in U.S. education during and in the wake of the pandemic. Whereas the digital divide refers to unequal access to and experience with technology, the disconnection divide, here, refers to unequal levels of opportunity, woven into the institutions of everyday life, to avoid technology use. As digital technologies become more powerful, persuasive, and integrated into education and everyday life, the disconnection divide may have implications for students' data privacy, technology use practices, and educational outcomes.
Adolescents' smartphone addiction has garnered significant social and academic attention, with prior research highlighting internet literacy and family socioeconomic status (SES) as key predictors. However, most studies treat SES as a composite measure - combining household income, occupation, and education level - often overlooking the specific influence of parental educational attainment and the distinct effects of maternal and paternal education. Drawing on Social Role Theory, which suggests that mothers and fathers adopt distinct roles shaped by societal expectations and cultural norms, the present study examined the differential influence of maternal and paternal education on adolescents' digital behaviors. This two-wave longitudinal survey (N = 926) conducted over three months among Chinese adolescents found a bidirectional negative relationship between smartphone addiction and internet literacy. Notably, maternal (but not paternal) educational attainment was significantly associated with lower adolescent smartphone addiction, which in turn predicted higher internet literacy. While paternal (but not maternal) educational attainment was linked to higher internet literacy, which in turn predicted lower smartphone addiction. The study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how parental educational background influences adolescents' digital behavior, providing valuable insights for developing targeted interventions aimed at reducing smartphone addiction.
Debates about online risks often overlook the realities of young people navigating structural adversity and inequality. This qualitative study explores how adolescents in a low-income, semi-rural South African community navigate the double-edged nature of social media. Drawing on in-depth interviews, we show how offline violence, gendered power dynamics, and structural inequalities are entangled with online experiences, creating overlapping risks that amplify existing vulnerabilities. Simultaneously, social media is a source of entertainment, belonging, and glimpses of alternative futures, particularly for adolescents with personal smartphone access. Digital literacy in this context is informal and reactive, shaped by peers and trusted adults rather than formal education. These findings show how local contexts structure both the benefits and harms of social media as well as the forms of digital literacy that develop.
