Associations Between Toddlers' Naturalistic Media Experience and Observed Learning from Screens

Using secondary analysis, researchers examined associations between two-year-olds' (N=135) naturalistic use of interactive and noninteractive media with performance on a screen-based learning task. Parents reported the number of minutes that children spent the previous day doing nine media-related activities (e.g., watching television, playing handheld videogames). The object-retrieval task required children to watch a hiding event on video and then search for the object on another screen or a real felt board. Results indicated that toddlers' naturalistic experience with interactive (but not noninteractive) media predicted their screen-based learning in the laboratory. This was true regardless of whether children were tested using interactive or noninteractive video, suggesting that using interactive media (but not watching noninteractive video) is associated with children's learning from screen media generally.