How does environmental media presence (e.g., smart phones, tablets, etc.) shape infant exploration during naturalistic home play, and how does it relate to caregiver input? Mother–infant dyads observed in both conditions.
Three findings: (1) Media presence reduced how often infants explored, but not how long each exploration bout lasted. (2) With media present, caregivers spent a larger share of coded time of no input (3) Supportive input was associated with longer exploration bouts in both conditions.
Infants initiated fewer exploration bouts per minute when media was present.
| Exploration Bout Descriptives | ||||||
| Condition |
Bouts (count)
|
Duration (s)
|
Rate (/min)
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | SD | M | SD | M | SD | |
| Media Absent | 18.14 | 5.97 | 7.74 | 2.39 | 3.66 | 1.22 |
| Media Present | 14.83 | 5.84 | 7.23 | 2.60 | 2.96 | 1.18 |
With media present, caregivers spent a larger share of coded time of no input.
| Caregiver Input by Condition | |||
| Condition | Input type |
Proportion of coded time
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| M | SE | ||
| Media Absent | Supportive | 24.6% | 3.3% |
| Media Absent | Disruptive | 9.1% | 1.3% |
| Media Absent | No Input | 66.2% | 3.4% |
| Media Present | Supportive | 12.0% | 1.6% |
| Media Present | Disruptive | 8.3% | 1.0% |
| Media Present | No Input | 79.7% | 1.8% |
Exploration was predominantly multimodal in both conditions.
| Exploration Type by Condition | |||||
| Condition | Type |
Proportion of bouts
|
Duration (s)
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | SE | M | SD | ||
| Media Absent | Manual | 8.3% | 2.4% | 5.25 | 3.77 |
| Media Absent | Multimodal | 78.1% | 3.1% | 8.35 | 2.79 |
| Media Absent | Visual | 13.6% | 2.3% | 5.60 | 2.85 |
| Media Present | Manual | 7.4% | 2.2% | 5.09 | 3.00 |
| Media Present | Multimodal | 69.9% | 3.3% | 7.41 | 2.79 |
| Media Present | Visual | 22.7% | 3.1% | 6.47 | 3.58 |
Supportive caregiver input was associated with longer exploration bouts in both conditions.