Parental mediation of very young children’s early experiences with digital media at home

Goodall, Janet and Flewitt, Rosie and El Gemayel, Sandra and Arnott, Lorna and Dalziell, Andy and Gillen, Julia and Savadova, Sabina and Timmins, Sarah and Liu, Minchen and Winter, Karen (2025) Parental mediation of very young children’s early experiences with digital media at home. Educational Review. ISSN 0013-1911 (In Press)

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Abstract

Digital devices are now found in the majority of homes, including the homes of very young children, and may be said to be a ‘dominant force’ in their lives (Council on Communications Media, Strasburger et al. 2013, 958). Such developments highlight the critical role parents play in mediating their very young children’s access to, ownership and use of digital technology in the family home, not least because one of the greatest contemporary challenges that parents experience is managing the tension between enhancing their children’s digital opportunities and safeguarding them from the potential harms associated with digital technology. Referred to as parental digital mediation practices, there is a body of work that both conceptualises these practices and explores their daily lived reality. While there has been a great deal of research around digital technology and parental mediation practices with older children, a stronger research base regarding very young children is needed not least because there is a growing concern to ensure both digital inclusion (how parents can maximise the benefits of digital technology for the very youngest members of their families) and digital safety and privacy (how parents can ensure their children’s safety from harm and develop their longer term knowledge and skills to navigate the online world safely). Drawing on findings from a UK-wide ESRC funded study that sought to explore the digital ownership, use and parental attitudes and practices, in relation to very young children aged 0-36 months, this paper focuses on parents’ perceptions of their mediation practices. The findings suggest that parents proactively mediate their children’s use of digital technology using complex, fluid, nuanced and interrelated approaches and strategies. In light of our findings, we suggest a new paradigm for capturing this complexity. We end by exploring the implications for research and practice. The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant Reference ES/W001020/1).