A first-of-its-kind analysis of children’s educational media consumption at home finds that television still rules, but that devices such as smartphones, tablets and even gaming consoles have the potential to encroach on both TV and school.
The study also suggests that as they get older, kids are spending less and less time with educational TV shows, apps and games, even as their screen time soars.
The findings, released by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a New York-based research lab based at Sesame Workshop, suggest that children ages 2 to 10 spend 42 minutes a day watching educational TV, but only five minutes using computers or mobile devices for education. They spend just three minutes a day playing educational video games, according to their parents, whose reports form the basis of the research.
But parents also say that 71 percent of kids have access to a smartphone in their homes, and 55 percent have access to a tablet. Perhaps more significantly for the future of educational games, 76 percent have access to a video game console.
“This could be a really golden age for educational media,” said longtime media researcher Vicky Rideout, who led the study, “but we have to keep our focus on really making sure we reach the kids who are most in need, that we’re really producing quality educational content, and that we’re reaching the older ones.”
The study found that kids’ screen time jumps from about 1½ hours when they’re preschoolers to 2½ hours by the time they’re 8 years old, but that the proportion of screen time that’s educational actually drops, from 78 percent to 27 percent.
Lisa Guernsey, director of the New America Foundation’s Early Education Initiative, said the age-related findings aren’t surprising.
“By the time kids are in first grade, what they want to watch on TV is much more what their peer group is watching,” she said.
But she was surprised by the low educational ratings that parents gave to a lot of children’s media. Only 4 percent, for instance, said the open-world game Minecraft is “very educational,” while 58 percent found Sesame Street very educational.
“Given how overhyped the marketplace is right now, it’s really interesting,” Guernsey said.
Guernsey, author of the 2012 book Screen Time: How Electronic Media – From Baby Videos to Educational Software – Affects Your Young Child, said the new findings are “a valuable first step, but this entire area is ripe for more investigation and research.”
She speaks to parents all the time, and many of them are overwhelmed by the claims of educational media.
“They are asking questions about whether this massive marketplace is meeting a need, or is it about developers who are trying to make a buck?” she said.
The new study is the first of a planned six, said Michael Levine, the Cooney Center’s founding director.
“We wanted to get a comprehensive picture of what parents report about media use in the home,” he said.
Among the issues he wants to explore: how families of different races and ethnicities consume educational media. The current study found that among parents who speak a foreign language at home, 71 percent say media have helped their kids learn English. But Latino parents were least likely to say, for instance, that their children have learned a lot of math using computers.
“We don’t think that scientists or policy makers have dug deeply enough into some of the differences that exist into these different demographics,” Levine said.
Rideout said the study “really does show us the potential” of educational media, “but we really have to work at it to be sure to maximize that potential.”
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