Smartphones, Interactive Media, and Early Childhood

^*Submitting Authors: Please indicate in your Cover Letter that your paper is for the Smartphones, Interactive Media, and Early Childhood Special Issue

Mobile and interactive media are now ubiquitous in young children’s everyday experiences. Time spent on mobile platforms such as smartphones and tablets has steadily grown over the past several years, with a variety of different experiences from streaming video to apps to videochat. Although concerns about displacement of family interactions, play, sleep, and boredom are commonly cited by early childhood clinicians and educators, the published evidence regarding media use and child development has limitations such as correlational analyses or parent-reported media measures.

This special issue aims to gather novel research about mobile/interactive media use by young children (0-8 years), with particular interest in use of ecologically valid observational measures; examination of how children’s individual characteristics interact with digital design to influence learning and behavior; how young children conceptualize mobile devices or learn informally from parents about technology; behavioral precursors of problematic media use; and how media are used throughout daily routines such as meals, bedtime, transportation, or to calm distress.

We are seeking high-quality original articles on the following topics related to mobile and interactive media and early childhood:

• Experimental studies (laboratory-based or intervention)
• Parent-child interaction
• Social-emotional development
• Child-computer interaction (specifically examining child individual characteristics and media design)
• Novel media measurement tools

Deadline for Submissions: August 1, 2019

Please submit your papers online to the web-based manuscript submission and peer-review system.

Questions? Contact the Journal Editorial Office.