ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on typically developing children aged 0–2 years, referred to as infants, and four types of digital media: video, TV, tablets and electronic toys. For infants, anxieties around digital media use are most pronounced and vividly demonstrated in research and policy–making discussions. Considering the rapid uptake of digital media by families in the Minority World such as the UK, Australia, USA and Canada, it is important to draw together the current available evidence on the affordances and limitations of digital media for infants and reflect on how to best support parents and educators in their decision-making around their use. The chapter reviews the evidence on how infants learn more generally, followed by the key theoretical conceptualisations of children’s learning. There are various ways to describe how children learn; and given the idiosyncratic nature of development for each child, there are probably as many ways as there are children in the world.
