Pediatric Collections offers what you need to know - original, focused research in a snapshot approach.
Technology can be leveraged as a tool to measure digital media use and eventually intervene, including a mobile app to track child smartphone and tablet use, which revealed insights about problematic content often accessed on devices. Future studies could use mobile apps and help families set limits and change design features, to support healthier relationships with media with tailored precision and accuracy.
Part 3 of this collection reflects how well-designed technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to expand the possibilities of play with imagination and envision a world where child-centered design can improve children’s wellbeing. Digital media can be leveraged as a distraction tool to reduce pain in prehospital settings. As technology becomes more sophisticated and can integrate children’s responses, there is the potential for it to contingently respond to children and act as a social partner. This may provide a more tailored and individualized approach to education and learning that meets children where they are developmentally.
This collection on digital media highlights the ecosystems that are shaping child and family interactions with digital media, its effects on children, and the promise that digital media may have in creating opportunities. Part 3 reflects how well-designed technologies have the potential to bend the arc of child and adolescent development and wellbeing toward opportunity. By understanding whether digital media are designed to be helpful tools, with a respect for children’s unique ways of interacting with the world, versus commercial tools that extract children’s and teens’ time and attention, pediatricians will be able to advocate for improved technology design. Lessons learned from these breakthroughs can inform the gaps and shape next research steps that are as future-facing as pediatric providers. In doing so, pediatricians will be equipped with the information and tools to provide the best anticipatory guidance around digital media to families.
