Abstract
Children today regularly interact with touchscreen devices (Rideout, 2013) and thousands of “educational” mobile applications are marketed to them (Shuler, 2012). Understanding children’s own ideas about optimal learning has important implications for education, which is being transformed by electronic mobile devices, yet we know little about how children think about such devices, including what children think touchscreens are useful for. Based on a prior result that children prefer a book over a touchscreen for learning about dogs, the present study explored how children view touchscreens versus books for learning an array of different types of information. Seventy children ages 3–6 were presented with six different topics (cooking, today’s weather, trees, vacuums, Virginia, and yesterday’s football game) and chose whether a book or a touchscreen device would be best to use to learn about each topic. Some of this information was time-sensitive, like the current weather; we predicted that children would prefer a touchscreen for time-sensitive information. In addition, each child’s parent was surveyed about the child’s use of books and touchscreens for educational purposes, both at home and in school. Results indicated that younger children had no preference between books and touchscreen devices across learning tasks. However, 6-year-olds were significantly more likely to choose the touchscreen for several topics. Surprisingly, 6-year-olds chose a touchscreen device to learn about time-sensitive weather conditions, but not yesterday’s football. Children’s choices were not associated with their use of books and touchscreens at home and school.
Highlights
Children’s use of touchscreen devices has grown tremendously in the last decade
Even by the age of two, over 75% of low-income children used mobile devices on a Preferences for Touchscreens versus Books daily basis, more than four times the 17% rate reported by Common Sense Media two years prior (Rideout, 2013)
These results indicate that children may privilege books over touchscreens in the context of learning, which is surprising given how attracted children can be to electronic devices
Summary
Children’s use of touchscreen devices has grown tremendously in the last decade. In a 2013 nationwide survey by Common Sense Media, 72% of children below the age of eight used a mobile device – almost twice as many as in 2011 (Rideout, 2011, 2013). Researchers are evaluating children’s ability to learn from touchscreen devices and educational apps. Children were asked to choose which object would be best for them to use for learning about dogs in a hypothetical scenario and the majority of children chose the book These results indicate that children may privilege books over touchscreens in the context of learning, which is surprising given how attracted children can be to electronic devices. Children were offered a variety of topics to learn about and asked to choose between two potential learning tools: a book and a touchscreen. We included two learning topics for which it would be best to use a touchscreen, to assess whether children treat timely information differently. We predicted that children who use touchscreens frequently for educational purposes would favor the touchscreen device in our task
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
