Touch Screen Childhood: an exploratory study about playing with tablets

Abstract

Ever-changing social standards are leading to substantial transformations in the social development of children. These behavioral shifts, and the way children think and relate with their peers, can be, to some extent, associated with the rise of digital technology. The qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study presented herein aims at identifying and understanding the way in which children play with tablets. The study is based on observations of four pre-scholar children (three to six years old) who make daily use of mobile devices at school and at home. Play time was observed during three different moments in a playroom. The study evidenced that children prefer playing with tablets instead of non-digital playing, and that playing with tablets can improve some cognitive skills. However, considering the predominance of child-tablet playing, some impairments of motor development and interpersonal interactions in the real world can be noted. Digital playing is not in opposition to non-digital playing, it just happens in a different realm, and characterizes a new, and still poorly known, representational universe, coexisting with other modalities of playing.