Play is an enjoyable and developmentally useful part of early childhood, and parent-child play is a highly productive mechanism by which children learn to participate in the world. We conducted an observational lab study to examine how 15 parent-child pairs (children age 4-6) respond to and play with tablet apps as compared to analog toys. We found that parents and children were less likely to engage with each other or to respond to each other\u2019s bids for attention during play sessions with tablets versus play sessions with toys. We also observed that specific design features of tablet devices and children\u2019s apps\u2014such as one-sided interfaces, game paradigms that demand continual attention, and lack of support for parallel interaction\u2014are the primary mechanism shaping these differences. We provide guidance suggesting how children\u2019s apps might be re-designed to preserve the advantages of digital play experiences while also evolving to build in the advantages of traditional toys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Play is an enjoyable and developmentally useful part of early childhood, and parent-child play is a highly productive mechanism by which children learn to participate in the world. We conducted an observational lab study to examine how 15 parent-child pairs (children age 4-6) respond to and play with tablet apps as compared to analog toys. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13554],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-503732","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"ACM","msr_edition":"Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2018-04-21","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"503738","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"TabletsAndToys-CHI2018","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2018\/08\/TabletsAndToys-CHI2018.pdf","id":503738,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Alexis Hiniker","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Bongshin Lee","user_id":31276,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Bongshin Lee"},{"type":"text","value":"Julie A. Kientz","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Jenny S. Radesky","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[199565],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[379814,371909],"msr_project":[365810],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"inproceedings","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/503732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/503732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503741,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/503732\/revisions\/503741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=503732"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=503732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}