Young Children and Mobile Media: Producing Digital Dexterity

162 Pages·2020·2.411 MB·English

by  Bjørn Nansen

Young Children
and Mobile Media
Producing
Digital Dexterity
Bjørn Nansen
Young Children and Mobile Media
Bjørn Nansen
Young Children and
Mobile Media
Producing Digital Dexterity
Bjørn Nansen
Media and Communications program
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC, Australia
ISBN 978-3-030-49874-0 ISBN 978-3-030-49875-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49875-7
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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A
cknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank Harvey and Lulu for their inspiration
and experimentation, and the hours of joy we have shared on YouTube,
Netflix, Minecraft, and playing together with myriad other kids’ media.
I would like to acknowledge and thank the collaborators I have had the
pleasure to work with in undertaking research studies and writing differ-
ent papers that have informed this book: Darshana Jayemanne, Tom
Apperley, Benjamin Nicoll, Chris O’Neill, Jane Mavoa, and Rowan Wilken.
And thanks also to the many colleagues and friends who have in various
ways helped in discussing and developing ideas in this book, especially folk
in the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) community, the
Melbourne University research team and Interaction Design group, the
Children’s Lives Research Initiative, Digital Games Research Association
Australia (DiGRAA), and the Digitising Early Childhood research
network:
Marcus Carter, Robbie Fordyce, Tamara Kohn, Scott McQuire, James
Meese, Melissa Rogerson, Emily van der Nagel, Frank Vetere, Martin
Gibbs, Michael Arnold, Jenny Kennedy, Tama Leaver, Crystal Abidin,
Wonsun Shin, Anthony McCosker, Milovan Savic, Karena Jessup, May
Lwin, Jessica Balanzategui, Donell Holloway, Lelia Green, Giovanna
Mascheroni, Andra Siibak, Ben Highmore, Luke Heemsbergen, Luke
van Ryn, Dale Leorke, Mitchell Harrop, Kate Mannell, Suneel Jethani,
Megan Richardson, Rhaisa Pael, Nate Tkacz, Suzy Edwards, Sue
Grieshaber, Lisa Gibbs, Lauren Carpenter, and the wonderful Katrin
Tiidenberg!
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I also wish to thank the many children and families who have given
generously of their time, who have shared their insights and experiences,
and who have been active research participants in the numerous projects
that inform this book. At Palgrave Macmillan, thanks to Camille Davies
for steering the project through review, and to Susan Jarvis and Sofie
Onorato for the editing support.
This book brings together findings from research funded by an
Australian Research Council (ARC), Discovery Early Career Researcher
Award (DE130100735), some of which have been previously published in
journals. I gratefully acknowledge the ARC’s generous financial support.
I am also grateful for funding and research support provided by the
Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society and the Melbourne Networked
Society Institute, the Australian Institute of Family Studies, and the School
of Culture and Communication.
c
ontents
1 Researching Young Children and Mobile Media 1
Defining and Historicising Digital Dexterity 7
Dexterity Imagined 8
Dexterity Mobilised 12
Dexterity Mediated 16
Notes on Research Contexts and Methods 19
Chapter Outline 22
References 24
2 Household Mobile Media Arrangements 35
Mediating Mobile Technologies at Home 37
Parental Dispositions Towards Mobile Media 44
Living with Mobile Media 46
References 50
3 A Touchscreen Media Habitus 53
Cultivating Children’s Touchscreen Media Habitus 55
Media, Habitus, Phenomenology 58
Configuring Habitus Through Interface Design 60
References 66
4 Parental Intermediation on YouTube 71
Digital Parenting: Mediation, Remediation, and Intermediation 72
iPad Baby Videos on YouTube 74
vii
viii CONTENTS
Naturalness: Touchscreen Interface Versus Digital Native 78
iPad Baby Video Reception 82
Technical and Cultural Intermediation in Video Editing 84
References 88
5 Digital Toys and Datafying Play 93
Postdigital Ecologies of Play 94
Interfacing with Amiibo 99
Locating Amiibo in Everyday Play Practices 103
Datafying Children’s Play 106
References 108
6 Postdigital Playgrounds 113
Children, Public Space, and Mobile Media 114
Digitally Augmenting Playgrounds 119
Case Studies of Postdigital Play Products 122
Concluding 129
References 130
References 135
Index 153
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 Photograph of child using touchscreen device at breakfast table 20
Fig. 2.1 Photograph of child reaching for touchscreen device 39
Fig. 2.2 Photograph of New Born Fame crib mobile. (Copyright Laura
Cornet) 49
Fig. 3.1 Photograph of child swiping touchscreen 57
Fig. 3.2 Touch Gesture Reference Guide. (Created by Vilamor, Craig,
Dan Willis, and Luke Wroblewski. 2010. Available at: https://
static.lukew.com/TouchGestureGuide.pdf. Creative Commons) 62
Fig. 4.1 Screenshot of YouTube video, “A Magazine is an iPad That
Does Not Work” 78
Fig. 4.2 Screenshot of iPad Baby Mashup video compilation 86
Fig. 5.1 Photograph of child playing with Osmo game 98
Fig. 5.2 Photograph of Amiibo figurines (https://www.flickr.com/
photos/128984244@N02/32845296782/) 100
Fig. 6.1 Screenshot of the Disney Fairies Trail mobile application.
(Source: The Creative Shop, app designer and developer) 123
Fig. 6.2 HybridPlay sensor clip. (Copyright HybridPLAY Clara Boj and
Diego Diaz 2015) 126
Fig. 6.3 HybridPlay design scenario. (Copyright HybridPLAY Clara Boj
and Diego Diaz 2015) 127
ix
CHAPTER 1
Researching Young Children and Mobile
Media
Abstract Researching young children and mobile media unpacks the con-
cept of digital dexterity. This chapter draws on literature that recognises
the diverse cultural, social, and material contexts that help to shape child-
hood development of digital skills and competency in an ongoing, uneven,
and distributed process. And so, as this book explores through various
spaces and products of young children’s mobile media practice, digital
dexterity is not simply a purely physical or bodily capacity, but instead
something that is produced and distributed through a diversity of relations
in the ways mobile media technologies are imagined, mobilised, and medi-
ated. That is, how mobile media are imagined through popular discourses
surrounding both interfaces and children’s digital literacies, mobilised
through the environments in which children encounter and engage with
media, and mediated by parental norms as well as the design and affor-
dances of digital products in, for example, codifying touch and gesture.
These imaginaries, mobilisations, and mediations of young children’s digi-
tal dexterity map onto broad areas of academic interest—discourses of
digital interfaces and associated literacies, affordances, and ecologies of
household media, and the governance or mediation of children’s media
practices—which are discussed in this chapter.
Keywords Children • Mobile media • Screen time • Parental
mediation • Household media • Digital interface • Affordances •
Touchscreen
© The Author(s) 2020 1
B. Nansen, Young Children and Mobile Media,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49875-7_1