Eyes in the room trump eyes on the screen: effects of a responsive co-viewer on toddlers’ responses to and learning from video chat

Abstract

Scaffolding may be important for children to overcome puzzling aspects of video chat. We examined whether live co-viewer behavior (responsive or unresponsive), video chat partner’s eye gaze (aligned or misaligned), and object similarity (similar or dissimilar) impacted 24- to 30-month-old children’s responsiveness to (and short-term learning from) video chat. Co-viewer behavior was the primary factor influencing children’s responsiveness and learning; the on-screen Partner’s eye gaze was only influential in the presence of a responsive co-viewer; and object similarity did not impact the outcomes measured. Co-viewing provides essential support for children to respond to and learn from video chat interactions because it demonstrates the relevance and usefulness of the on-screen information. Findings suggest that children depend primarily on their live social partners to make sense of their media experiences.

Keywords:

• Video chat
• co-viewing
• communication
• social interaction
• social engagement
• toddlers

Acknowledgments

We appreciate feedback on the manuscript provided by Gabrielle Strouse, Dafna Lemish, and two anonymous reviewers. We are grateful for the parents and children who participated in this research and to the following local organizations for assisting in participant recruitment: Easton Area Public Library, Easton Farmers Market, Bethlehem Area Public Library, Phillipsburg Free Library, Emmaus Public Library, Lafayette Early Learning Center, MOMS Clubs of Easton and Bethlehem, Ju Ju Monkey, My Smart Hands of the Lehigh Valley, and Kindermusik Sing N Move. Finally, the first author thanks Rebecca Barrett-Fox’s Any Good Thing Writing Group, and especially Julia Nicodemus and Angelika von Wahl for their collegial support of academic writing. Portions of this research were presented at the October 2016 Special Topic Meeting (Technology and Media in Children’s Development) of the Society for Research in Child Development (Irvine, CA), and at the 2017 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (Austin, TX).

Notes

1. A supplementary analysis with trial number as a repeated measure revealed no effect of trial (ns) on the number of correct items in the word learning task. Thus, although the same objects appeared in several trials (as target object once and as distracter twice), there was no evidence that children were using mutual exclusivity on subsequent trials.