An ecological perspective on children’s play with digital technologies in South Africa and the United Kingdom

Figures & data

Figure 1. A visualisation of the ecological systems of children’s play with digital technologies, adapted from Neal and Neal (2013).

Table 1. A summary of the ecological systems of children’s play with digital technologies, adapted from Neal and Neal (2013).

	Description	Examples
Microsystem	The practices and interactions that a developing child experiences, and is implicated in, in relation to direct human, material and spatial influences.	A child’s primary caregivers; Wider family members; Family friends; Adults’ confidence and skills; Peers; Educators and carers; Educator beliefs and practices; Digital and non-digital objects; Device availability; Affordances and design features of apps, platforms, games and objects; Access to services, e.g. Internet; Practices in third spaces; Space and time; Community spaces.
Mesosystem	The inter-relations amongst particular clusters of direct influence, although such clusters may be messily defined and difficult to disentangle.	Between family and formal educational clusters; Between family and family friend clusters.
Exosystem	The child’s proxy human, material and spatial influences (i.e. those they are connected with only through other people, objects or spaces, but which impact on their life).	A primary caregiver’s colleagues. Parent interactions beyond the home; Practices and beliefs in the community; A peer’s favourite television show.
Macrosystem	Broader, high-level factors that are messily inflected across the other systems (people, including children, influence, and are influenced by, culture).	Cultural; Economic; Policy; Law; Tech industry standards; Societal attitudes and influences; Infrastructural, including tech infrastructure.
Historical trajectories	People, objects and spaces throughout the systems are travelling along historical trajectories, which are also influential.	A child and their family’s history with digital technologies; Their history with a specific technology, game, narrative or fictional character.

Table 2. Study participants.

	South Africa	United Kingdom
Survey respondents (#)	1286	2429
Case study families (#)	9	10
Case study children (#)	10**	17
Education settings (#)	9	5
Focus group children (#) Grade/ Year Gender Race	49 9 R; 8 G1; 10 G2; 16 G4; 6 G5 28 Girl; 21 Boy 12 W; 9 B; 24 C; 4 I	71 12 FS2; 4 YR1; 13 YR2; 12 YR3; 7 YR4; 5 YR5; 9 YR6; 9 YR7 34 Girl; 37 Boy Not available
Parent telephone interviews (#)	30	30
Teacher/community member interviews (#)	14	24

*more than one child, ‘missing’ or ‘prefer not to say’ responses removed.

**in one family case study in SA, the team worked with twins as the focus child(ren).

Table 3. Survey respondents.

	South Africa	United Kingdom
Survey respondents (#)	1286	2429
Ages*	3–6 (55%) 7–11 (45%)	3–7 (51%) 8–11 (59%)
Gender*	Girl (47%) Boy (51%) Other (2%)	Female (47%) Male (53%)
Socioeconomic group of family* Total annual household income in Rand used in SA; NRS grades in the UK.	R500,000 +  (11%) R250,000–499,999 (17%) R100,000–249,999 (21%) R50,000–99,999 (16%) R20,000–49,999 (17%) R19,000 >  (13%) Government social grant (5%)	A (11%) B (25%) C1 (28%) C2 (17%) D (13%) E (3%) Other (4%)
Race (of parent)*	Black African (46%) Coloured (32%) White (15%) Indian/ Asian (6%) Other (1%)	White (87%) Mixed (4%) Asian or Asian-British (6%) Black or Black-British (2%) Chinese or other (2%)

*more than one child, ‘missing’ or ‘prefer not to say’ responses removed.

Table 4. Case study families.

Family	Child (ren)	Age (s)	Gender (s)	Child (ren)’s race/ethnicity	Work of chief income earner in the household (discussed at interview)	SA/UK
A	Zuko	6	Boy	Black	Software Development Manager	SA
B	Eshal	7	Girl	Coloured	Not known	SA
C	Henry	8	Boy	Black	Gardener (Casual)	SA
D	Sophia	11	Girl	Coloured	Project Manager, Insurance Company	SA
E	Linton Della	6 6	Boy Girl	Black	Government Administrator	SA
F	Karabo	10	Boy	Black	Academic	SA
G	Lulama	5	Girl	Black	Liaison Officer, National Student Funding Scheme	SA
H	Kamden	4	Boy	Coloured	Facilities Manager	SA
J	Gemma	8	Girl	Indian	Physical Education Teacher (Retired)	SA
1	Mallison Essa	6 4	Boy Boy	Mixed (White British/Black African)	Midwife	UK
2	Alison Chloe	6 4	Girl Girl	White British	Finance Officer (Telecommunications)	UK
3	Stephanie Saskia	9 6	Girl Girl	White British	Supervisor, Surgical Instruments Manufacturer	UK
4	Harvey Simon	6 8	Boy Boy	White British	Barrister	UK
5	Zander	5	Boy	White British	Chartered Engineer	UK
6	Leo Alfie	5 3	Boy Boy	Mixed (Cuban/Turkish)	University Teacher	UK
7	Anna John	7 4	Girl Boy	White British	(Ex) Sales Assistant	UK
8	Jeremy Cerys	11 9	Boy Girl	Mixed (White British and Native American)	(Ex) Computer Programmer	UK
9	Hanif	8	Boy	Yemeni	Language Teacher (Arabic)	UK
10	Noah Jacqueline	9 5	Boy Girl	White British	Care Worker	UK

Table 5. Data sources.

	South Africa	United Kingdom
# case study interview transcripts (family, community and school interviews) and total duration of audio in HH:MM:SS	190 93:12:24	211 Unknown
# videos recorded by the research team and total duration of videos in HH:MM:SS	644 26:21:47	427 16:07:07
# videos recorded by parents and total duration of videos in HH:MM:SS	100 03:33:29	35 02:28:06
# videos recorded by children and total duration of videos in HH:MM:SS	241 21:00:12	108 11:41:11
# images taken by the research team	948	3107
# images taken by families	290	66
#. drawings/play diary pages by children	168	N/A
# WhatsApp messages sent by parents	80	79
# field note entries	59	43
# focus group transcripts	54	288
# images generated in focus groups	140	2945
# concept maps/drawings	82	102

Figure 2. Access to digital devices anywhere (parent survey data).

Figure 3. Ownership of digital devices (parent survey data).

Figure 4. Children’s play with digital games (parent survey data).

Figure 5. Children’s play types by device in the United Kingdom (parent survey data).

Figure 6. Children’s play types by device in South Africa (parent survey data).

Figure 7. Children’s unassisted digital skills (parent survey data).

Table 6. Playthings in SA and UK children’s lives.

Non-digital playthings …
… designed for indoor play LEGO blocks and other construction toys Dolls and furry toys Puzzles Trampolines Balls Action/ fantasy figures and worlds Transport models Plastic animals Replications of real-life artefacts e.g. cooker Drawing, making, art materials	… designed for outdoors play Trampolines Kites Skipping ropes Soccer balls Bicycles Climbing frames Slides, swings etc.
… not designed for play, but which are adopted for play Newspapers Sellotape Domestic items e.g. bread containers House furniture Street furniture	Natural materials used in outdoor play Egg shells Sticks Mud Trees
Recycled materials Paper Bottle tops Plastic bottles Straws Pipe cleaners String Wool Wire	Non-digital texts Library books Picture books Magazines Comic books Colouring-in books School readers
Digital playthings …
Digital objects designed for play Virtual Reality Goggles Drones RoboPets	Electronic playthings Toy tablets Remote-controlled cars
Technologies using software designed for play Games consoles e.g. PlayStation, XBox, Nintendo Switch Smart watches Smartphones Tablets Laptops Televisions	Technologies/software not designed for play which are adopted for play Smart Assistants e.g. Alexa, Siri Chatbot Chalk CCTV Television

Neal, J. W., & Neal, Z. P. (2013). Nested or networked? Future directions for ecological systems theory. Social Development, 22(4), 722–737. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12018

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Data availability statement

All research tools and statistical data are hosted on the Open Data Repositories. In the United Kingdom, research tools, statistical data and a range of qualitative data (including interview transcripts) are available via The University of Sheffield’s Online Research Data repository (ORDA) [https://orda.sheffield.ac.uk/]. In South Africa, research tools and statistical data are available via the University of Cape Town’s Open Data hub (ZivaHub) [https://zivahub.uct.ac.za/].