Parent input needed to help design our next research study


Parents, what’s the one question you’d like to know the answer to when it comes to children and media? I’m in the process of brainstorming for our next research project, and I’d like to spend my time looking for answers to the questions that parents have. Any and all input is appreciated!


  1. I have lots of questions, children and media is s hot topic in our home:
    What if any impact does media have on your preschoolers attention span?
    What evidence is there that less variety in media is beneficial under the age of 5?
    What is the impact of children passively witnessing a parent watching tv, while the other parent is engaging in play with their child?


  2. I’m curious about Minecraft as my son wants to play. How is much play time is too much? How many parental controls are necessary? How do you teach acceptable limits in the game without using parental controls? What about the social aspects, as kids usually play it together? Does the process of building in the game develop the same or similar spatial reasoning skills as say, playing with legos or blocks?


  3. I saw you mention a study on how viewing media with parents is different than viewing it alone. I would like to know if viewing media with siblings or peers is different than viewing it alone and if that has a different impact than viewing with parents.


  4. Wow, interesting information! I guess my question is actually whether my intuition is correct that I ought to make my kids watch things on one screen together instead of letting them each pick their own content on separate screens. It causes lots of arguing, negotiating, and frequent parent intervention. Even though I know it’s important for me to watch with them, sometimes the only way I can get dinner made is to let them watch something for an hour without me. From those abstracts, now I’m not quite as sure that having them watch together instead of separating them is really beneficial.


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