What If Technology Isn’t the Problem? A New Way to Support Young Children
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By Susan Edwards and Leon Straker
An Interview with the Authors of Young Children in Digital Society: Now and into the Future
As digital technologies become more deeply embedded in everyday life, many parents, educators, and researchers are asking the same pressing question: How can we support young children to thrive in this digital world? This is the central concern of the new book Young Children in Digital Society: Now and into the Future, authored by Susan Edwards, Leon Straker, and Kristiina Kumpulainen. Drawing from a unique cross-disciplinary collaboration and an innovative research project involving families, educators, industry partners, and children themselves, the book offers a much-needed shift away from oversimplified “good vs. bad tech” debates.
We caught up with the authors to discuss what inspired the book, how COVID-19 changed their research methods, and what the future of digital childhood might look like, including the role of artificial intelligence. Their insights are especially timely for anyone working with or caring for young children in today’s increasingly digitized world.
What inspired you to write “Young Children in Digital Society” at this particular moment time?
This book was inspired by our desire to see children thrive, which led to our research project Young Children in Digital Society. Our project was a collaborative effort between children, educators, families, researchers and Industry Partners interested in identifying the practices that most effectively help children use digital technologies in ways that support their relationships, health and wellbeing, digital citizenship and opportunities for play and learning. The book is timely given that many young children today live in highly digitized societies and use technologies and access the internet in their daily lives. We wanted to produce a book that would give researchers, educators and industry insight into how to think about technologies beyond viewing technologies as either good or bad for children. This ‘good or bad’ view, known as technological determinism, can constrain how adults think about the possible use of technologies ‘with, by and for’ young children that facilitate their participation in society.
How did your collaboration come about, given your different academic backgrounds in early childhood education and allied health?
The collaboration came about through Susan and Leon being invited to co-chair and author the Early Childhood Australia Statement on Young Children and Digital Technologies. Early Childhood Australia is the peak representative body for early childhood education and care in Australia. They were advancing the development of the first national statement supporting educators with digital technology use in early childhood education and care. Early Childhood Australia believed that the Statement should be guided by diverse expertise, including that of early education and health to ensure a balance of perspectives and knowledge in the Statement itself. From working on the Statement, and securing funding for the project Young Children in Digital Society, we continued to collaboration together on the book Young Children in Digital Society: Now and into the Future. Our different academic backgrounds have been a strength of the collaboration and the book, acknowledging the significance of both early education, and young children’ health and wellbeing using digital technologies.
What methodological challenges did you face when researching young children’s interactions with digital technology?
Our main methodological challenge came with the arrival of COVID19. We had just received funding for the project when COVID19 began. Like everyone around the world we had to think through how to interact with children, families and educators through remote measures. We addressed this by developing suggested experiences children, families and educators could enact where they were, and inviting participants to capture children’s experiences using images, video, written text and interviews. A big challenge in our project was managing four studies in the areas of relationships, health and wellbeing, citizenship and play and pedagogy at the same time as we needed to identify practices in each of these areas and then cross-share them with children, families and educators. If one study was slower than another the timing of the cross-sharing of practices would have been impacted. We were interested in cross-sharing of practices because digital practices that are shared amongst people are considered with critical constructivist perspectives on technology to have social value and utility.
Your book addresses both “now and into the future” – what current trends do you see that will most significantly shape children’s digital experiences in the coming decade?
Already AI is having a large influence on many aspects of education, including early childhood education. When we started the project and writing the book AI was still very emergent in the sector. By the time we finished the book AI was quite prevalent in the research literature and making an appearance in the lives of children, families, educators, especially through AI used for planning and assessing learning, and AI in commonly used family devices, such as voice assistants. In our book we reflect on how practices (which are what people do and say, and how they relate to other people) and technologies are formative for understanding new digital technologies over time. This is because practices constitute how people participate in and create their societies. So, while AI is a new technology, we have considered in our book how the practices we identified in the project can be adapted to consider the safe and appropriate use of AI with young children.
What personal experiences with children and technology have shaped your perspectives as researchers and authors?
In our personal lives as parents we have had to consider how technologies are used within our own families. We were therefore interested in how children, families and educators use digital technologies for real purposes in their lives. There can be tendency to tell or recommend to adults what they should do with children in relation to technologies. For example, some previous thinking about screen time recommending time limits, or no technology use for children at particular ages. However, these recommendations are not always feasible for adults in practice, such as when a family has mixed-aged siblings and younger children are exposed to the screen time of older children. In these situations, parents can feel guilty about not meeting screen time recommendations for their young children. We are interested in the practices that occur between siblings and parents in these situations and how practices can be developed to support better outcomes for children. For example, ensuring that when younger siblings are exposed to the technology activities of older children that this involves appropriate supervision and quality content.
How can parents apply the insights from your book to make informed decisions about their children’s technology use at home?
Parents can apply insights from our book by thinking about the range of practices we have identified such as sharing, discussing, viewing, interpreting, reinforcing and how these might be used with children in their own circumstances. Because practices explain what people do, say and how they relate to people and technologies they do not prescribe what parents should do with young children and technologies. Practices can direct attention to what parents think is important and valuable for their children in their lives in relation to technologies. For example, if parents value physical activity for their children, the practice of reinforcing explains how they can use technologies with children to record and co-view children’s progress towards achieving new skills. There is a companion website to the book Young Children in Digital Society that features resources such as infographics, videos, books and tipsheets that parents and educators can access to support with informed decision making about children’s technology use.
Young Children in Digital Society: Now and into the Future
Moving the conversation about young children and digital technologies away beyond “good” or “bad”, Susan Edwards and Leon Straker present an innovative perspective to educators, researchers, and communities on how to support young children to learn and thrive safely in a digital society.