DO FAMILIES NEED TO POWER DOWN TO CONNECT? A STUDY OF FAMILIES TECHNOLOGY AND WELLBEING.
Childminders in the Okanagan have expressed concerns about young children’s dependence on, and overuse of, screen-based media including smartphones, tablets, television, and videogames. We attempted to quantify relationships between different types of technology use (i.e., device, amount, weekday and weekend use) and indicators of both parent and child psychological wellbeing.
Participants (N = 456) were Okanagan parents with at least one child between the ages of 2–5. They reported on their technology use as well as the technology use of their young children and responded to measures of psychological wellbeing for both themselves and their children. We will present results showing the self-reported frequency of various types of technology use amongst families with young children, and whether there are benefits to wellbeing for families who impose a “no screen time” rule, or for families who restrict screen time based on Canadian Paediatric Society recommendations.
Zak Draper, MA, is a PhD student in Psychological Science. His research includes the development and testing of statistical procedures used to test hypotheses, with the goal of increasing confidence in statistical inferences; he also examines the role of technology use in families, with the goal of identifying potential harms and benefits of technology use in families with young children. Zak received an Institute of Community Engaged Research in 2019 to support his research.
Arts 368, ICER
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
