Digital games and digital play in early childhood: a cultural-historical approach

ABSTRACT

A body of research that investigates the social, cognitive and emotional effects of digital technologies on the development of children reports that digital technologies are limiting activities that connect children with people. On the other hand, there is a great amount of research on the positive role of digital play. However, digital games per se and their influence on young children’s development remain less researched. The role of digital play and digital games in the development of young children is discussed within the framework of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical conception. This article proposes a distinction between digital play (DP) and digital game (DG) as a cultural tool connected to the main components of play – imaginary situations, play rules and play actions. A ‘normative situation’, an important component of play that links play rules, roles and play actions, is introduced as a reliable criterion for assessing the developing potential of DGs.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital play
• digital game
• child development
• digital play evaluation tool

Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to Dr. Rod Parker-Rees for valuable comments and suggestions for improvements of the manuscript and to Prokhor Veresov for providing the examples of digital games. Dr. Rod Parker-Rees took no part in the reviewing processes for this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation [20-18-00423].