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Can screen-time applications help to control smartphone usage? Maladaptive consumption in the form of smartphone overuse is a concern for many consumers. As a solution, screen-time applicat...

Spatial skills support STEM learning and achievement. However, children from low-socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds typically lag behind their middle- and high-SES peers. We asked whether a digital educational app-designed to mirror an already successful, spatial assembly training program using concrete materials-would be as effective for facilitating spatial skills in under-resourced preschoolers as the concrete materials. Three-year-olds (N = 61) from under-resourced backgrounds were randomly assigned to a business-as-usual control group or to receive 5 weeks of spatial training using either concrete, tangible materials or a digital app on a tablet. The spatial puzzles used were an extension of items from the Test of Spatial Assembly (TOSA). Preschoolers were pretested and posttested on new two-dimensional (2D) TOSA trials. Results indicate that both concrete and digital spatial training increased performance on the 2D-TOSA compared to the control group. The two trainings did not statistically differ from one another suggesting that educational spatial apps may be one route to providing early foundational skills to children from under-resourced backgrounds.

Building on the theory of rational addiction, we conducted two pre-registered randomized control trials (RCT) to reduce smartphone usage. Besides a control condition, two treatments were conducted. In the anticipated incentive treatment, subjects were incentivized to reduce screen time but only for the second half of the treatment period. However, they were informed about their incentives and targets from the very beginning of the treatment period. We compared this to a full incentive treatment, where subjects were incentivized to reduce their mobile screen time for the complete treatment period. Consistent with rational addiction, subjects in the anticipated incentive treatment, especially those with excessive mobile usage, started reducing their screen time even prior to the incentive period. They continued to maintain a lower usage during the incentive period and sustained that lower usage even after the incentives were removed. Our manuscript further provides support for rational addiction theory by showing that subjects’ previous usage and beliefs about their future usage positively predict current mobile screen time.

Today, fully 98% of children under eight have access to a mobile device at home (Rideout, 2017). Not surprisingly, researchers are increasingly interested in studying development in the context of ...

As children’s exposure to touchscreen technology and other digital media increases, so does the need to understand the conditions under which children are able to learn from this technology. The prevalence of screen media in the lives of young children has increased significantly over the last two decades. The use of touchscreen devices among 2–4-year-olds in the USA increased from 39 to 80 % from 2011 to 2013 (Rideout, 2013). Despite frequent engagement with these devices, it is widely recognized that children exhibit a transfer deficit, a term coined to denote children’s consistently poorer learning from television and touchscreens relative to face-to-face interaction (see Barr, Developmental review 30(2):128–154, 2010; Barr, Child Development Perspectives 7(4):205–210, 2013). In this chapter, we focus on understanding the transfer deficit when children engage in imitative learning from touchscreens and television (e.g., Dickerson et al., Developmental Psychobiology 55(7):719–732, 2013, Moser et al., Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 137:137–155, 2015; Zack et al., British Journal of Developmental Psychology 27(Pt 1):13–26, 2009, Zack et al., Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 54(1):20–25, 2013; Zimmermann et al., Child Development, in press). Specifically, we discuss the role of child experience, perceptual and cognitive constraints, transfer distance, and social scaffolding in the transfer deficit. We conclude with lessons for parents and early educators regarding the strategies that may enhance learning across the dimensional divide.

Young children typically demonstrate a transfer deficit, learning less from video than live presentations. Semantically meaningful context has been demonstrated to enhance learning in young children. We examined the effect of a semantically meaningful context on toddlers’ imitation performance. Two- and 2.5-year-olds participated in a puzzle imitation task to examine learning from either a live or televised model. The model demonstrated how to assemble a three-piece puzzle to make a fish or a boat, with the puzzle demonstration occurring against a semantically meaningful background context (ocean) or a yellow background (no context). Participants in the video condition performed significantly worse than participants in the live condition, demonstrating the typical transfer deficit effect. While the context helped improve overall levels of imitation, especially for the boat puzzle, only individual differences in the ability to self-generate a stimulus label were associated with a reduction in the transfer deficit.