Digital tech can offer rich opportunities for child development, study says

Although it has been argued that under-threes should not have any screen time at all, research has found that digital tech can offer "rich opportunities" for young children's development. A two-year study, Toddlers, Tech and Talk, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and led by researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), working with Lancaster, Queen's Belfast, Strathclyde and Swansea universities, looked at children's interactions with everything from Amazon Alexa to Ring doorbells, in diverse communities across the UK, to find out how tech was influencing 0- to three-year-olds' early talk and literacy. It examined how children use technology with parents or by themselves, whether taking photos and videos, using learning apps and playing games, listening and singing to songs, talking about favourite characters, or chatting on video calls. The researchers found that children were not only interacting with smart devices and appliances when very young, but also that digital tech could have benefits for language development and other skills. "The evidence generated through this study suggests that young children's digital activity often involves sensory exploration through touch, vision, hearing, movement and embodied cognition," the report said.