Georgetown University’s Children’s Digital Media Center (CDMC) received a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the influences of digital media on very early development. Georgetown Psychology Professor Sandra Calvert will lead the collaborative studies that include scholars from The University of Massachusetts, The University of California at Riverside, and The University of Texas at Austin.
"I would like to congratulate Professor Calvert on this remarkable accomplishment,” said Jane McAuliffe, Dean of Georgetown College. “It reflects both the university’s leadership in the empirical sciences and, more significantly, the impact that her scholarship has on the field of early childhood cognitive research.”
Over the past four years, digital media products directed at infants and very young children have exploded into the market place. The average U.S. infant and toddler now invests approximately two hours each day with media, beginning with DVD viewing in the first months of life followed by computer exposure in mother’s lap at about age 2½. The grant will allow CDMC researchers to examine the impact of this increasing exposure to digital interactive technologies during early development.
“Although the American Academy of Pediatrics believes that exposure to media content presented on a screen is detrimental to early development,” Calvert says, “there are limited empirical data to address this question. We know that exposure to adult television programs disrupts children’s play, but we do not know if exposure to programs made just for young children are detrimental or not. We are studying a new frontier that has important developmental implications for our nation’s youth.”
Using interdisciplinary research in the fields of psychology, communications, human development, sociology, public policy, and medicine, the CDMC research team will conduct national surveys to document patterns of change and continuity over time in very young children’s access to, and uses of, varying kinds of digital media. The CDMC team will also conduct a content analysis of the formal production features, such as action and music, used in popular digital products for the very young.
How children learn to comprehend the symbols within these digital technologies is a key aspect of this program of research. Experimental studies and eye-tracking studies will be used to examine how very young children learn to read a screen. Further study will examine how those patterns change with age and experience. Researchers will also examine if the kinds of social relationships that very young children form with television characters influence how much they learn from educational television programs.
On a broader level, the study aims to inform policy discussions on the best use of digital media for children.
"This program of research has the potential to inform policy decisions as well as impact the kinds of digital programs that are available for children to use," Calvert said. "Too often media policies and children's programs are created without a sound database to inform those decisions. Our research will facilitate the work of policymakers and computer programmers who seek to create a world where delightful, quality interactive digital media for children flourishes.”
