Infants, Toddlers, and Technology in Early Childhood Settings

This chapter addresses how early childhood professionals can implement technology in early childhood settings with infants and toddlers. Early childhood educators face complex expectations to ensure children learn and develop optimally. Technology use with infants and toddlers in early childhood settings introduces additional intricacies and nuances. This chapter explores and assesses technology usage with infants and toddlers. The impact of violent media on infants and toddlers is explored. The use of applications in early childhood settings is discussed, including consideration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on technology usage, along with research-based solutions and recommendations to using technology with infants and toddlers. Implications for early childhood teacher education and professional development are also summarized. Finally, future trends related to technology usage with infants and toddlers are discussed.

Violent Media Use and Violent Outcomes

Electronic media is an omnipresent form of entertainment in contemporary society. A large body of empirical evidence provides support for the notion that violent media use (e.g., television, films, video games) increases the likelihood of low-level everyday forms of physical, verbal, and relational aggression. Less work has been conducted on the effects of violent media on more extreme forms of aggression that can be considered violent. This chapter provides a review of the theoretical frameworks for understanding the potential effects of violent media use on violent outcomes. It follows this discussion with a selective review of the relevant literature regarding the effects of violent media use on violent outcomes, with a focus on the effects of violent video games. Conclusions are drawn regarding the state of the literature, current debate, and future directions needed for research.

Reactions to Unsolicited Violent, and Sexual, Explicit Media Content Shared over Social Media: Gender Differences and Links with Prior Exposure

While there has been extensive research into consumption of “traditional” forms of explicit sexual and violent media (within pornography, videogames and movies), the informal exchange and viewing of explicit real-world violent and sexual content via social media is an under-investigated and potentially problematic behaviour. The current study used an online survey (n = 225: 169f, 55m, 1x, mean age 30.61 (SD 12.03)) to explore self-reported reactions to unsolicited explicit violent and sexual content that participants had received from friends or contacts. In line with our predictions based on previous studies of fictional explicit content, we found effects of both gender and prior exposure on these reactions. Specifically, females rated both sexual and violent explicit content as significantly less funny and exciting and more disturbing than males did. Amongst males, those with high previous exposure rated violent content as more exciting than those with lower or no prior experience. Regardless of gender, participants with higher exposure to sexual content rated it as funnier than those with mild or no exposure, and those with higher exposure to violent content rated it as more amusing and more exciting. However, contrary to what desensitization theories would predict, prior exposure did not attenuate how disturbing explicit content (of either a sexual or a violent nature) was rated. Multiple avenues for further investigation emerged from this preliminary cross-sectional study, and we suggest priorities for further qualitative or longitudinal work on this novel topic.