Early Childhood and Digital Media

Screen time, defined as estimates of child time spent with digital media, is considered harmful to very young children. At the same time, the use of digital media by children under five years of age has increased dramatically, and with the advent of mobile and streaming media can occur anywhere and at any time. Digital media has become an integral part of family life. Imprecise global screen time estimates do not capture multiple factors that shape family media ecology. In this Element, the authors discuss the need to shift the lens from screen time measures to measures of family media ecology, describe the new Dynamic, Relational, Ecological Approach to Media Effects Research (DREAMER) framework, and more comprehensive digital media assessments. The authors conclude this Element with a roadmap for future research using the DREAMER framework to better understand how digital media use is associated with child outcomes.

1. Introduction; 2. Review of the literature: shifting the lens from 'screen time' to 'family media ecology'; 3. Review of theoretical models of digital media effects that inform the dreamer framework; 4. Developing a new conceptual framework for understanding digital media effects on children: the dreamer framework; 5. An evolving digital media landscape: the problem of measurement and content analysis; 6. Future directions using the dreamer Framework; 7. Conclusions; References.