Mapping the daily media round: novel methods for understanding families’ mobile technology use

ABSTRACT

The pervasiveness of mobile devices in families’ homes has dramatically changed the physical and temporal arrangement of co-viewing media content; the representative image of American families seated around a TV set is an anachronism. But understanding and describing contemporary co-participation arrangements around digital media is challenging because of the mobile nature of these activities. As researchers, our greatest challenge is to observe people's digital media use that is increasingly ‘on-the-move’ in an effort to understand the significance and possibilities these devices have in family life, learning, and engagement in and across different settings. This article describes an innovative study design for understanding how mobile technologies influence the ways in which families learn together. We analyze the movement of digital media practices, where they are located, and how digital co-participation within families is distributed across time and space.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobility
• methods
• digital media
• technology
• learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Katie Headrick Taylor, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of learning sciences and human development at the University of Washington's College of Education.

Lori Takeuchi, Ph.D., is a senior director and research scientist at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.

Reed Stevens, Ph.D., is a professor of learning sciences at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy.

ORCID

Katie Headrick Taylor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4535-6671

Notes

1 All participant names are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Funding

This work was also supported by the National Science Foundation [grant number SBE-0354453]. This work was supported by the Families and Media Project thanks to grants from the Heising-Simons Foundation [grant number #2013-29] and the Bezos Family Foundation.