Moving Beyond Quality and Quantity: Approaching Children’s Digital Media Use With More Nuance

Abstract

There is no doubt that children today are increasingly immersed in a digital world. Headlines often proclaim the number of hours children are spending on screens and the pandemic only increased awareness and concern about the implications for children’s development and well-being in this digital world. In this special issue of Translational Issues in Psychological Science, we highlight how more nuanced methodological and theoretical approaches to studying children’s digital media use are increasingly necessary to truly understand the role of digital media in children’s lives. Furthermore, this issue provides concrete examples of novel theoretical and methodological approaches which allow for deeper exploration and discovery of the use of screens by today’s children and families. This special issue illustrates the importance of going beyond traditional screen time conversations about the number of hours children use media or basic descriptions of content consumed. Screens are used flexibly and dynamically by families and we must explore what we know and how to give guidance within the realities of actual lived experiences of families. Finally, we explore how research investigating screen use needs greater application, translation, and outreach as this work can have real-world, immediate impacts on children, their families, and other important people in their lives.