Technology and Interactive Media for Young Children

In 2012, less than 2 years after Apple released the iPad, the National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC] and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College [Fred Rogers Center] released a seminal joint position statement on the use of technology and interactive media in early childhood programs. At the time of the literature review, there was little empirical research about how these new technologies and media would impact young children’s lives and classroom practices. By the time the position statement was released, over 50 million iPads were sold and had made their way into homes, schools, pediatrician’s offices, church basements, restaurants, shopping centers, libraries, and museums (Statista, 2017). Media were designed, developed, and created for young children for use on tablets, smartphones, and other mobile platforms at breakneck speed, often backed with very little or no cognitive and educational research. Dubbed “educational” media, these products were launched and marketed to caregivers, teachers, and often children themselves—the impacts of which were largely undocumented and unexplored (Guernsey, Levine, Chiong, & Severns, 2012; Schuler, Levine, & Ree, 2012). The joint position statement was intended to provide guidance to the field about the ways in which technology and interactive media might be used in developmentally appropriate and intentional ways with young children in this rapidly expanding and highly unknown landscape.