Exposure to electronic media between 6 and 24 months of age: An exploratory study

Abstract

This study explores the associations between electronic media exposure, age, and socioeconomic status (SES) in a longitudinal sample of 24 infants from English-speaking families. Leveraging Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) technology, the study seeks to characterize the relation between electronic media exposure and parental and child vocal activity. We analyzed ecologically valid, daylong audio recordings collected in infants’ homes when they were 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months old. SES was measured with the Hollingshead Index, and exposure to electronic media and adult and infant vocal activity were measured automatically with LENA. On average, the children in the sample were exposed to 58 min of electronic media daily. We found that electronic media exposure was negatively associated with SES and decreased with child age, but only amongst high-SES families. We also found that electronic media exposure negatively impacted concurrent adult and child vocal activity, irrespective of SES and infant age. The present findings are an important step forward in examining the role of demographic factors in exposure to electronic media and enhance our understanding of the mechanisms through which exposure to electronic media may impact linguistic development in infancy and beyond.