Toddlers, Tech and Talk: Research explores how WhatsApp and Zoom calls can help young children communicate

How infants and toddlers learn to communicate using TV streaming, digital books and family Zoom calls in their everyday home lives will be studied in a ground-breaking new research project.

Toddlers, Tech and Talk, led by researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, is the most in-depth study to date into how the daily exposure of babies and very young children to digital technologies influences how they speak and interact with others.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased families’ reliance on the internet to manage everyday life, keep in touch with loved ones and educate and entertain their young children, yet many parents and carers are unaware of how this affects them.

Data shows that the digital and online activity of children aged 3-15 grows each year, but comparatively little is known about how the very youngest use technology.

Findings from the project will enable families and policymakers to better understand how children aged 0-3 develop early talk and literacy as they use digital media, and how families can support their learning and wellbeing.

Researchers will also investigate how social divides across and within the UK’s four nations shape children’s digital experiences, and the project will reflect the country’s cultural and linguistic diversity.

Most children are born into homes where digital technologies are embedded in the everyday fabric of family life, influencing their early language and literacy encounters. There’s a pressing need to find out much more about how very young children interact with, around and through digital media.

Professor Rosie Flewitt, research lead and Professor of Early Childhood Communication at Manchester Metropolitan, said: “Most children are born into homes where digital technologies are embedded in the everyday fabric of family life, influencing their early language and literacy encounters. There’s a pressing need to find out much more about how very young children interact with, around and through digital media.”

“Children’s activity online and use of digital technologies tend to provoke public and media debates that focus on potential harm to children’s safety and security rather than on opportunities for learning.”

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the two-year project also involves researchers from Lancaster University, Swansea University, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Strathclyde.

The study will involve a survey of more than 1000 parents and carers of 0-3-year-olds’ digital media use at home, 60 interviews with parents, education and care professionals and in-depth case studies in the homes of 40 families in diverse social and linguistic communities from across the UK.

Resources for parents and teachers will be produced, as will policy briefings and written evidence for national, devolved and local governments on very young children’s learning, safety and wellbeing in digitally connected homes.

Professor Julia Gillen of Lancaster University added: “From birth, almost every child in the UK has a digital footprint, and digital media begin to influence how they live and learn. Through survey research, interviews and innovative participatory research methods, we will generate new understandings of contemporary home learning environments. We will work to ensure our methods are inclusive of diverse social, ethnic and linguistic communities while adapting to individual family beliefs and practices.”

Professor Janet Goodall of Swansea University said: “I’m very excited about this project. We know that parents and carers want the best for their children, but in this fast changing world, it can be very difficult to know what the ‘best’ is or can be.  This project will help us understand how families with young children are using and interacting with digital technology, and give us a much better understanding of the place of technology in families’ lives.”

Professor Karen Winter and Dr Katrina McLaughlin from Queen’s University Belfast said: “There has been a huge expansion in young children’s access to digital technology in their homes. With this there has also been a growing interest in how children and carers engage with the technology, and its impacts both negative and positive. This project provides a unique opportunity to explore these issues within the intimate space of private family homes to generate new understanding and insights”.