Trends in the use of digital technology by children in early 21st century: New data on digital events in childhood
Year: 2024
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: New technologies enter human life and become an integral part of it. Children born at the beginning of the 21st century are called digital natives because they grew up surrounded by computers and Internet technologies and easily master them. Research from the past 20 years shows that it is young users who most actively explore the Internet and that today children are literally ‘born with a mobile phone in their hand’. However, is it possible to say with confidence that the early 2000s generation had a ‘digital childhood’? The author conducted the second study Your Childhood Events 2023 involving the youth aged 17–23 years in order to clarify the specifics of the childhood of children born in the 2000s, determine the age of occurrence of various life events, and analyze the dynamics of changes in childhood events in comparison with the first study in 2018. The 2018 questionnaire was revised to reflect the changes that have occurred in society over the past five years. A separate block of questions about subcultures was added, and the list of questions related to consumer behavior, Internet practices, etc. was expanded. The study showed that there is a downward trend in the average age in which children begin to use mobile devices and online practices. However, all digital events still occurred for the first time at school age. The data obtained do not support the hypothesis about the early start of the use of information technologies by children at the beginning of the 21st century.
Source: Comprehensive Child Studies
Author: Alexandra Yu. Gubanova
Institution: Russian Society of Sociologists
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4409305142