Nod, nod, ignore: An exploratory observational study on the relationship between parental mobile media use and parental responsiveness towards young children

There are concerns that contemporary caregivers are so absorbed by their mobile devices that it hampers their responsiveness to their children. Recent ethnographic work suggests that these concerns are warranted. Scholarly work on this issue is scarce, however, and systematic observations of the phenomenon are lacking. This chapter presents an exploratory study in which caregiver-child dyads were systematically observed to assess whether the tendency to respond and the timeliness, strength and emotionality of caregiver responses to children's bids for attention are negatively affected by phone engagement (Hypothesis 1), and whether the relation of phone engagement to caregiver responsiveness is different than the relation of other distracting activities that caregivers might engage in when caring for a child (Hypothesis 2). We observed caregivers and children between the ages of zero and five in Dutch consultation bureaus and playgrounds. Drawing from observations gathered from 25 caregiver-child dyads, the results show that the likelihood to respond, the timeliness and the strength of caregivers' responses are each negatively affected by phone use. In addition, phone use appeared to be more engaging and therefore affect responsiveness more strongly than being engaged in other distractive activities. Given the importance of parental responsiveness for child development, these findings indicate an urgent need for further research on the issue and on how it can be addressed.