Attempting to break the fourth wall: Young children's action errors with screen media

Abstract

Young children sometimes perform actions not afforded by the environmental context that they are currently in. Anecdotal reports and past research have suggested that young children sometimes attempt to perform actions with screen media that they cannot perform successfully given the constraints of the media. These behaviors have been defined as a type of action error we refer to as media errors. We report on two studies that examined the nature and frequency of these behaviors in young children. Study 1 was an online retrospective survey of 292 caregivers' reports of their young children's (ages 8 months to 4 years) media errors. Study 2 was a 6-month prospective study of 45 families with children initially between the ages of 10 and 24 months. Across the two studies, a substantial portion of caregivers reported that their children had performed one or more media errors that were confirmed by experienced coders (30% in Study 1, 62% in Study 2). In both studies, the only tested factor that was reliably related to the frequency of media errors was the child's age. Media errors were found to peak in late infancy and decrease significantly with age thereafter, suggesting that as children age and gain more experience with screen media they come to understand what this type of media affords for action.

Children's understanding of emerging technologies: Introduction to the special issue

“…The first theme is that, although exposure to or familiarity with a technology is necessary for young children to understand the affordances of that technology, it may not be sufficient; rather, there may be requisite gains in cognitive development for children to more completely understand the technology. Rosengren et al (2021) provide evidence that infants as young as 10 months old commit media errors when interacting via screens, and these errors do not decline in frequency until after age 2. By age 4, children also understand that video chat has a mixture of life-like affordances (e.g., seeing and hearing) and picture-like limitations (e.g., cannot feel touch; Bennette et al, 2021).…”

The Concept of Child-Centred Care in Healthcare: A Scoping Review

“…Evidence from different countries with different health systems shows that the lack of a systematic approach, at all levels in an organisation, can impede the well-integrated adoption of person-centred care [67]. Successful adoption requires the use of evidencebased knowledge, guidelines and national regulations [67].…”

“…Evidence from different countries with different health systems shows that the lack of a systematic approach, at all levels in an organisation, can impede the well-integrated adoption of person-centred care [67]. Successful adoption requires the use of evidencebased knowledge, guidelines and national regulations [67]. The lack of a clear evidence base for impact and benefit, as well as a lack of guidelines and regulations, perhaps provides a rationale for why child-centred care has not, so far, been effectively adopted across healthcare systems.…”

In modeling digital learning, remember pictorial competence.

“…Nine-month-olds direct the same manual behaviors toward pictured objects as they do to the objects themselves, attempting to grasp toys depicted in pictures (DeLoache, 1995) and video (Pierroutsakos & Troseth, 2003). In one famous instance of a "media error" (Rosengren et al, 2021), an empathetic Japanese toddler used a tissue to try to wipe the tears of a disgraced, crying politician on the TV screen (Miller, 2015). In such cases, young children appear not to notice the 2D picture surface and respond only to the depicted contents (Ittelson, 1996).…”