Abstract
The article examines the platformisation of everyday life and children’s television use by exploring how 0–3-year-olds’ television viewing on screen media is embedded into the daily social practices of families in Sweden. It addresses the following research questions: (1) What social practices are organised around young children’s television viewing on screen media? (2) How can these television practices be understood through the domestic processes of appropriation, objectification and incorporation? Using the ‘A Day in the Life’ research design, the analysis explores the practices of play, togetherness, meals and daily routine management.
Keywords
Growing up today: From broadcasting to streaming television
Watching television programmes is a media habit formed in the early years of life. The time young children spend on linear TV viewing is constantly decreasing, while the use of streaming services on various devices and platforms is increasing, for both commercial and public service alternatives. In Sweden, young children primarily have access to a large television screen at home: 80% of 0–1-year-olds and 96% of 2–4-year-olds. Tablet access is 45% for 0–1-year-olds and 66% for 2–4-year-olds. Mobile phones are less available, with 39% of 0–1-year-olds and 36% of 2–4-year-olds having access (Swedish Media Council, 2023). Previous generations grew up with one or several TV sets at home, where television content, such as news, films, series and children’ programmes, was broadcast. Viewers had limited access and had to follow the scheduled content. Today, digital streaming technology allows children to easily access the same television content on various mobile screen media via platforms like YouTube, Disney+ and Netflix. Current discussions on the increasing platformisation of everyday life (Van Dijck et al., 2018) highlight how key mechanisms in digital media, including social media platforms (digital infrastructures for communication and information), such as mobility (anytime and anyplace), connectivity and personalized logics, are structuring experiences and practices of daily life.
The platformisation of everyday life provides users with greater autonomy in terms of time and space, as well as additional opportunities for social relationships (Abeele et al., 2018; Poell et al., 2019). Television streaming on digital platforms has not only changed our viewing habits in terms of time and space but also added new formats, such as shorter video clips on YouTube. Despite the rapid technological changes in television as a medium, the spatial arrangement of a large screen for streaming in the living room has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s (Raudaskoski et al., 2017). The TV set, now often a large screen mounted on a wall, continues to serve as the focal point in the living room, highlighting the importance of understanding media use in relation to family dynamics and habits. In this article, platformisation is examined from a user perspective (Poell et al., 2019), focusing on how the social practices of 16 young children are organised around television viewing on various screen media. By adopting a user perspective, we argue that research should focus on the situated dynamics of how 0–3-year-old children, within a family context, view television on different screen media and streaming platforms, which provide them with increasing flexibility and connectivity. This perspective on platformisation highlights that children’s television viewing consists of a set of multidimensional practices taking place not only on different devices and platforms but also influencing and being influenced by various domestic processes at home. To understand these processes, children’s television use is analysed through the theoretical lenses of domestication research (Silverstone et al., 1992) and media practices (Couldry, 2004).
In this article, we focus on screen media used for viewing television content on different platforms, specifically children’s programmes and films. The following research questions are examined: (1) What social practices are organised around young children’s television viewing on screen media? (2) How can these television practices be understood through the domestic processes of appropriation, objectification and incorporation?
Key issues in prior research on young children’s television viewing
Research conducted on young children (ages 0–3) and television over the past two decades has mainly been framed within an effects paradigm (e.g. correlations in cross sectional studies) and has predominantly been conducted within the fields of paediatric medicine, public health, developmental psychology and media studies. While previous research has been dominated by a development psychological perspective on effects, using surveys and experiments, recent media studies approach 0–3-year old’s television viewing from a cultural studies perspective, conducting observations in natural settings. In this latter approach, the child’s own choices and their influence on their own environment are important points of departure. Much of the research from the last two decades has focused on the effects of viewing on traditional television sets and programmes produced to educate or entertain children. Studies have examined children’s programmes on broadcast television and on VHS/DVD. As the media landscape has evolved with digital streaming technology, recent studies also examine television content for young children on different screen media and platforms, especially YouTube.
The impact of television on young children’s cognitive development has raised much concern, particularly regarding, for example, language development and media literacy. Courage and Frizzell’s (2020) review of studies examining learning and television viewing concludes that while young children are attentive to visual content such as movement and colours, they struggle to follow story lines due to immature comprehension skills. According to Anderson and Hanson (2010), infants around 6 months old can identify both objects and people on television. DeLoache et al. (2010) found that 12- to 18-month-old toddlers who watched DVD films several times per week did not learn more words than the control group of children who did not watch films. Previous research has also examined how co-viewing with parents leads to a richer vocabulary (e.g. discussing a specific character) compared to when children watch alone (e.g. Lavigne et al., 2015). Andersson and Hanson (2016) highlight that both the context and the type of content matter, noting that parent-child interactions increase when watching programmes directed at children rather than adults.
Attention is another key issue identified by previous research. Attention-getting is defined as the moment the child directs their attention to television content, while attention-holding involves information processing and requires the cognitive capacity to focus, which develops around 18 months (Courage and Setliff, 2010). Valkenburg and Vroone (2004) observed 6 to 58 month olds at home and concluded that infants paid particular attention to salient content features like applause and visual surprises. Older children’s attention was more drawn to dialogues between characters. Similar results have been found in other studies, where young children, from about the age of 6 months, show increased attention to complex audiovisual patterns due to cognitive and social development (Richards, 2010). Brodsky and Sulki (2021) investigated the soundscapes of television series directed towards infants. The results show that while sound and music attract 0- to 3-year-olds and direct their gaze towards the screen, the auditory components did not facilitate further engagement, such as dancing or singing.
The impact of background TV on parent-child interaction and behavioural development has gained scholarly attention. Kirkorian et al. (2009) examined children aged 12 to 36 months in a laboratory setting, where an adult TVprogramme was on in the background half of the time. The results showed that when the TV was on, both the quality and quantity of interactions (e.g. frequency of verbal or nonverbal responses) between the child and the parent decreased. Similar findings, such as the reduction in child-directed speech due to background television, have been reported in other studies (e.g. Chonchaiya et al., 2015; Christakis et al., 2009; Pempek et al., 2014). In addition, research has examined the influence of background television on play activities. Findings indicate that children up to the age of 2 are more easily interrupted in their play by background television. However, for 36-month-olds, play activities increased while the television was on (Kirkorian et al., 2019).
Li et al. (2020) reviewed studies on health issues and television viewing among toddlers and pre-schoolers. Their results highlight that toddlers with excessive screen time were more likely to be overweight and have shorter periods of sleep. Another area of research focused on parental beliefs about television viewing and young children. Zimmerman et al. (2007) found that parents of children under 2 years old primarily use television programmes or VHS/DVD for educational and entertainment purposes, but also as a babysitter. Beck et al. (2015) examined Latino parents’ beliefs about television viewing, revealing that their main concern is that it may cause vision problems in children.
Finally, studies have been conducted in natural settings with young children and various screen media. Poveda et al. (2020) focused on children under the age of three in Spain, Sweden and the UK, examining their engagement with tablets and television in relation to the household’s spatio-temporal dimension. The study shows how children’s media use is interwoven with other family activities. Similar findings are presented by Sandberg et al. (2021).
With the increased platformisation of everyday life (Poell et al., 2019), young children use different platforms to access the same television content on various screens. YouTube and YouTube kids are among the most popular platforms for young children (O’Connor et al., 2023). A review by Burcu et al. (2019) concludes that research on the youngest children’s use of and engagement with online videos on YouTube is just emerging. So far, research has mainly focused on the types of content and parental concerns. Few studies have been conducted with younger children, although there are exceptions, such as O’Connor et al. (2023), who examined how children aged 3 and above choose and comprehend YouTube videos. In summary, there is a lack of research on what young children do while viewing television on different screen media within a family context, a knowledge gap that this article aims to address.
Platformisation through the lens of domestication processes and media practices
Adopting a user perspective on platformisation (Poell et al., 2019) and focusing on how young children’s social practices are organised around digital media, this article uses domestication processes and media practices as its theoretical framework to empirically examine television viewing among children aged 0–3 years. Domestication research, which developed in the early 1990s (Silverstone, 1994; Silverstone et al., 1992), highlighted the importance of the home and the domestic sphere in family television viewing. Since the late 1990s, the focus of domestication research has expanded to include the Internet and mobile media (Haddon, 2018; Hartmann, 2013). This research underscores how media technology is integrated into the lives of individuals and how media are attributed meaning and importance within the domestic setting, thereby becoming part of various daily practices and routines (Haddon, 2006). Media become tools or generators of symbolic resources for making sense of daily life (Silverstone et al., 2002) and for articulating a household’s identity, including its specific beliefs and values, known as its moral economy (Silverstone et al., 1992). Domestication theory addresses several processes, in which media use is embedded. For example, the process of appropriation begins when a household starts discussing whether to buy a new medium and continues when it finally enters the household. Appropriation involves the adoption and type of media use, as well as the negotiations of meanings around the medium. Through the process of appropriation, a medium finds its place in a household’s routines. Objectification examines the spatial location of products: where they are placed and why. In addition, media are objectified in a household through family members’ discussions about, for instance, a television programme. Silverstone et al. (1992: 20) describe how media products, together with other objects in the household, form the ‘geography of the home’, a symbolic system articulating the household’s moral economy. The incorporation process involves the temporal aspects of everyday life, expressed through daily routines and time schedules. Media are shaped by the temporal structures of the home, but they also challenge and revise these structures (Silverstone et al., 1992).
While domestication research deals with how media use is integrated into various daily practices (Haddon, 2006), it often overlooks the specifics of what these practices entail. Similar to domestication research, Couldry’s theory (2004, 2012) of media practices urges us to move beyond the debate on media effects and to examine media not just in terms of production conditions or consumption of specific media content. A media practice approach shifts our focus towards ‘[…] the whole range of practices that are oriented towards media and the role of media in ordering other practices in the social world’ (Couldry, 2004: 115). According to Couldry, practice is defined as a type of agency. Our focus here is on what children do with screen media while watching television, such as the daily needs these media fulfil and how they are appropriated and incorporated in daily activities at home. Hence, this highlights the child’s agency and their capacity to act. Furthermore, Couldry distinguishes between self-reflective practices and routine practices, which are done without any reflection. The mechanisms of ordering different practices in daily life are central to Couldry’s work, revealing coordination, hierarchies and tensions between various practices. In our work, these practices are further understood by being embedded in different domestication processes (Silverstone et al., 1992).
Methods and data: ‘A day in the life’
This study is part of the DIGIKIDS project (2019–2023). We draw insights from Swedish data involving 16 families with children aged 6 weeks to 3 years and 4 months. The project applies ‘A Day in the Life’ methodology (Gillen et al., 2007), which includes three visits to each child’s home, including interviews with parents, fieldnotes, video recordings of the child throughout the day, surveys (mapping media access and digital media skills) and drawings of the domestic space. Fieldwork was conducted from 2019 to 2022, with a break due to the Covid-19 pandemic (June 2020–November 2021).
The first visit to a family involved gathering background data, mapping the household media ecology, getting to know the child and introducing the video camera. During the first visit, an interview was conducted, mainly with the parents, lasting between 1 and 2½ hours. The camera was tested to help the child become accustomed to it. Field notes were taken, and a sketch of the home was made. The parents were asked to complete a survey about media access at home and the child’s digital media skills. During the second visit, the participating child was filmed for at least 6 hours. The two researchers tried to stay in the background. The video recording was paused when necessary, for example, when the child got dressed, went to the toilet or took a nap. The reason for choosing video filming in the ‘A Day in the Life’ research design is to gain knowledge that goes beyond verbal accounts and provides an insight into actual media practices of the participating children throughout a day. While the video recording worked well in most families, parents noted that children initially became quieter than usually, likely reacting to the presence of two strangers in their home. In some cases, the children wanted to interact with the researchers by showing them toys.
The researcher team reviewed the recorded material and agreed on the segments to be included in a 20-min video compilation. The video compilation was delivered to the family before the third visit. Parents were asked to watch it and write their reflections. During the third visit, selected situations from the video compilation were discussed in an interview lasting between 1 and 2½ hours. The interview was audio recorded, and all interviews were transcribed verbatim.
The analysis here is partly based on the interview data from the first and third visits. A code book was developed jointly by the three researchers. Much effort was dedicated to reviewing and revising the coding jointly to assure its quality. The code book contains a total of 60 codes, which are both theory-driven and data-driven. The software NVivo was used to analyse the interview data. The interview data were further analysed to understand the identified television practices by cross-referencing these with observations from the video recordings of the second visit. Illustrations from the video recordings are included in the later analysis to visualise identified practices, in addition to interview data and fieldnotes.
Participating families
Participating families.
aMother’s and father’s education: high (university degree), medium (post-secondary education), low (compulsory school/upper secondary).
The 16 families were rather diverse, thus allowing for the examination of digital media practices in different contextual settings. In five families, the participating child had siblings. As for digital media ownership, all parents had smartphones, and two participating children had their own phones. The families had one to three large screens for watching television. In Table 1, the phrase TV screen on wall includes free-standing large screen TVs. Laptops, usually from the parents’ work, were more common than stationary computers, and eight families had one or more tablets. Table 1 provides an overview of the participating families.
The ‘A Day in the Life’ approach, with its three visits, presented several challenges. In addition to the fact that traditional nuclear families were more inclined to participate, the recruitment process took longer time than expected. Committing to three visits, including a full day of video filming, was a significant demand for families with young children, who often have busy daily schedules. In three families, not all three visits were completed. Both single mothers dropped out after first visit, realising that the project required too much of their time but permission was given to use collected data. Another family participated in the first visit, but the child had turned 4 years old after the fieldwork was paused due to the pandemic. Despite the need for extensive planning and flexibility, the three visits were crucial for establishing trust and getting to know the families over time.
Analysis
In the analysis, four recurrent television practices among 0–3-year-old children were identified, providing insight into the social practices organised around TV viewing and how these are embedded in domestic processes. The television practices are as follows: practices of play, practices of togetherness, meal practices and practices of daily routine management. Various examples from the collected material illustrate the nuances of each television practice. All participating children used YouTube/YouTube Kids as their main platform for audiovisual entertainment, which included children’s programmes from Swedish TV channels and international productions from The Walt Disney Company. The television content was in Swedish and English, as well as in other languages spoken by the family, such as Russian, Polish, Serbian and Portuguese. The most popular programmes were Cocomelon (2018–24), Blippi (2014–present), Daniel Tiger (2012–present), Baby Shark (2020–present), Bolibompa (a Swedish public service production, 1987-present) and Babblarna (a Swedish production focused on children’s language development, 2017–20).
Practices of play
It was common for participating families to have a toy corner in the living room or toys spread out on the floor. These toys could be played with while watching television (cf. Poveda et al., 2020). According to domestication theory (Silverstone et al., 1992), television viewing has become appropriated and integrated with different practices of play at home due to the physical placement of the large screen on the wall in the living room, with additional space to play in front of it. This appropriation of viewing highlights the child as an active participant, being active and creative, rather than passively sitting in front of the screen (Kinder, 1999). The practice includes how television viewing can inform a child’s play, initiating new activities, re-working play activities, rearranging the domestic space by moving toys in front of the screen or having the TV on to listen to music while playing. This active engagement is exemplified by Hugo, aged 1 year and 3 months.
Hugo has his own mobile, which he uses only for listening to music when going to bed. However, Hugo knows that he needs the mobile to watch TV or ‘Tube’ as he says about the large screen in the living room: Hugo comes out of the bedroom with his own mobile phone. ‘Tube,’ he says, and jumps on the sofa while his dad looks for the remote control. Hugo then sits on the floor with his mobile phone to watch TV. He climbs back onto the sofa to get pillows, places a pillow in front of the TV and starts building with wooden blocks on the floor. He watches TV (animated videoclips on YouTube with Swedish songs) while playing with the pillows and blocks. [...] Now the song ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ plays on TV. Hugo becomes attentive and makes arm movements to the song. (From fieldnotes visit 2, family 11)
The situation described in the fieldnotes is illustrated in Figure 1. The example shows how TV viewing is incorporated with other play practices: playing with pillows and toys, which are placed in front of the TV screen, while occasionally glancing at the screen. We also see how TV viewing can initiate new activities, such as moving one’s arms to a song. Hugo demonstrates agency by bringing the mobile phone from the bedroom, thus expressing his desire to watch TV, and rearranging the space in front of the TV screen with pillows and toys. This exemplifies what Couldry (2004) refers to as a self-reflective practice. Hugo, 1 year and 3 months, playing in front of the TV screen in the living room.
Parents describe different forms of television play observed while children watch or listen to content. The children play with toys or are involved in drawing while watching. These television practices of play might also involve children commenting on the programme or enjoying a song and starting to dance. Like Hugo, watching animated videoclips with songs on YouTube was popular among the children. Couldry (2004) highlights the ordering of different practices in daily life. This ordering draws attention to how television viewing can initiate and coordinate physical play, such as movements or dancing, as discussed above, and incorporate other toys into the play practice. In the following example, the child looks for a specific toy related to a programme: Mother: [...] When she sees these children playing the violin, she gets her guitar and her shoehorn. Interviewer: That’s clever. Mother: She will do the same [as the children in the programme] (Luna, 3 years)
The described television practices of play show how children engage with content in various ways in a daily setting. This contrasts with the findings of Brodsky and Sulki (2021), where auditory components in TV series for young children did not facilitate further engagement in terms of dancing or singing. The examples above illustrate not only how television viewing is integrated with other physical play practices – where play is the main activity and the child occasionally glances at the screen – but also how viewing can initiate new play activities, such as picking a similar toy or imitating television content by dancing (cf. Couldry, 2004).
Practices of togetherness
The different identified practices of togetherness in the material highlight how television acts as a social glue for the child. The participating families discuss television viewing on the flat screen in the living room as, what Couldry (2004) would label, a type of ritual, where regular television practices are framing the family value of being together but also as a time marker for the child, signalling the end of a day or a working week. According to domestication theory, this can be understood as a process of incorporation, where television practices form temporal structures within the home (Silverstone et al., 1992).
Figure 2 below shows how the parents and their 6-week-old baby, Annie, sit together on the sofa in front of the television screen in the living room, usually watching series on Netflix. This daily practice occurs after the father returns from work, exemplifying TV viewing as both a ritual of togetherness and a time marker. The parents eat dinner while watching and discussing their day, paying little attention to the TV content. Instead, their focus is on each other and making Annie comfortable on the sofa. Despite this, the TV remains on in the background, a media practice that gains its meaning through its integration with the social practice of togetherness. For the youngest children in our study, these television practices create a space of closeness with the parents, even when adult programmes are on. While previous research has examined co-viewing in terms of language development (e.g. Lavigne et al., 2015), a practice-led perspective on young children’s television viewing highlights additional dimensions, such as the importance of closeness and being together as a family, with the living room as a central spatial location. Annie, 6 weeks, watching television together with parents.
In the material, we see more examples of similar temporal and spatial domestic aspects of a child’s television practice of togetherness. A common viewing ritual involves families gathering in front of the large screen in the living room every Friday or Saturday to watch a film or entertainment programme, thus fostering child-parent bonding: Mother: We’ve always had Friday films, and we’ve all watched films. We also watch films on Saturdays. Father: Yes, we have cozy Fridays and Saturdays. And then you also try to make an effort to ... if it’s a film that we’ve been waiting for and that has just been released, then it becomes a little special. (Maj, 3 years and 4 months)
A second type of television practice of togetherness is how the child dances and sings in front of the screen in the living room with their parents. In Figure 3, the domestication process of objectification (Silverstone et al., 1992) is illustrated by the physical location of the large screen on the wall and the spatial arrangements in the living room, providing needed space for the father and Stella, 1 year and 11 months, to dance together. Mobile screens, compared to the large screen, cannot facilitate this type of engaged co-viewing with movements. Stella, 1 year and 11 months, with her father singing and dancing in front of the screen.
The fieldnotes from the situation illustrated in Figure 3 provide an insight into how television practices of togetherness can be expressed. TV viewing orders other social practices (Couldry, 2004) by initiating singing and dancing: The father sings happily and loudly to the music video on YouTube. Next, a tune with ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ plays. The father sings along again, Stella wants to get up and dance. Daddy joins in, and they dance together with great joy. […] Stella now stands on the floor near the screen, looking up at it. She climbs on the sofa table. She takes off and throws herself into her father’s arms. (From fieldnotes visit 2, family 9)
A final example of the practice of togetherness is when children and parents share mutual engagements in watching sports. Figure 4 shows Isabella, 2 years and 9 months, and her father engaging in their ritual of watching football matches and cheering for ‘their’ team while wearing replica shirts. Here, media content is objectified in the household through the physical representation of the football shirts (cf. Silverstone et al., 1992). Isabella, 2 years and 9 months, with her father cheering for their favourite football team.
The video filming during visit 2 provides an insight into how social practices – such as TV talk, clothing and other media use in families’ everyday lives – are closely intertwined with television viewing. The quote from the fieldnotes below demonstrates how several practices are involved in a child’s joy in preparing to watch a football game, and how the upcoming TV event becomes part of a conversation with her grandmother. According to Couldry (2004), viewing here becomes the ordering principle for other social practices: Then they start talking about football and how Isabella and her dad should put on their football shirts. […]. Dad and Isabella go upstairs to change, and Isabella laughs loudly from upstairs. They come down the stairs in matching football shirts. Mum calls grandma on her mobile phone. Isabella shows her shirt and speaks with her grandmother. [...] After the call ends, Isabella and her father sit down in front of the TV to watch the football match on a streaming site. (From fieldnotes visit 2, family 6)
Meal practices
One main reason for allowing the child to sit in front of the large screen in the living room or use a tablet or smartphone at the kitchen table is that it becomes an important tool for facilitating eating. Digital media platforms, irrespective of the device type, can be used anytime and anywhere (Abeele et al., 2018), which is highly appreciated by the families. This makes television use an integral part of meal practices (see Figure 5). Milena’s, 1 year and 11 months, mediated meal practices.
Figure 5 illustrates a meal during the observation day. Milena’s mother brings the food and the tablet to the kitchen table. She switches on the tablet and selects Milena’s favourite animated YouTube clips. Milena chooses which one to watch while eating, and the mother stays close by, occasionally sitting next to her. Milena’s father explains the helpful use of the tablet during meals: Father: That’s why we use the tablet. Interviewer: Okay, so she sits there (in the kitchen). Father: Watching and eating. She has a lot of energy, so it’s hard for her to sit still and do nothing. Just sitting and eating barely works. She needs to be occupied by something.
Other families discussed similar situations, noting how watching screen media becomes a tactic to ensure that their child eats, as it can be challenging for children to sit still for long periods. These tactics can exemplify, according to Couldry (2004), how television practices are not only coordinated with other social practices but also facilitate them, thus serving as a tool to help the child sit still and form daily food habits: Mother: We kind of always eat in front of the TV. Then she eats, it’s no problem. You know Ines, she hates sitting on a chair. She doesn’t eat if she just sits on a chair because there’s too much focus on the food itself and the plate, and what’s on the plate. But when she sits there (in front of the TV), it’s easier for her to eat. (Ines, 1 year and 6 months)
For meal practices, we see how different devices are used depending on the child’s needs, as well as how parents’ values and beliefs about where to eat influence television practices. This is part of the moral economy of the household (Silverstone et al., 1992). For example, Stella eats at the kitchen table, where the mobile phone becomes useful: Father: Sometimes she doesn’t want to eat her food. She just doesn’t want to. […] We turn on the mobile phone, play a YouTube video and we pause it. Then she starts to eat, and then she eats very well. (Stella, 1 year and 11 months)
In the material, we find additional examples of meal practices. Eating in front of the screen, either alone or with siblings, can fulfil a child’s need to wake up slowly in the morning or to provide a relaxing moment after a hectic day at preschool. Here, the temporal aspects of everyday life, expressed through daily routines and schedules, frame these mediated meal practices (Silverstone et al., 1992). The quotation below illustrates that to watch alone, without the expectation of social interaction with other family members, is ordered over the social practice of eating together without media: Father: Yes, but it’s often the case that the children, especially if it’s dinner time after preschool, are not interested in... Mother: ...sitting nicely. Father: and sitting still to socialise. It is more them recharging their batteries. And if this means that they get to watch something while they eat, then that’s it. (Maj, 3 years and 4 months)
Practices of daily routine management
Besides having meals, a young child’s daily life involves various practices of routine management. Among the participating families, several examples show how television practices can help children manage daily ‘must-dos’. Watching video clips on YouTube can be a helpful way to learn about the importance of flushing the toilet or washing their hands. Once again, we see how platforms like YouTube facilitate and coordinate other social practices (cf. Couldry, 2004), for example, children aged around 6 to 9 months getting their first teeth. Brushing their teeth in the morning and evening is not always met with enthusiasm, but watching video clips about brushing teeth might help: Mother: Yes, we need some tricks. Maybe we should have watched more toothbrush TV. Well, we’ll have to do it again. I think we’ll have to do it again because it’s very difficult now. Interviewer: What kind of toothbrush TV is it? YouTube clips or…? Father: It’s something by Swedish television where there is an episode with children brushing their teeth and singing songs. (Ida, 1 year and 9 months)
In the material, we also see how screen media is used as a tool to help when a child is angry or upset. It acts like a digital teddy bear, helping the child to calm down or find comfort by watching a favourite programme: Father: Babblarna [Swedish children’s programme]...it was probably when you [researchers] were here, there was a lot of Babblarna. You can turn it on if she gets sad, for example. It’s on the iPad. (Olga, 1 year and 8 months) Mother: Yes, and I started with the iPad for her because [...] she could calm down. It’s the only way for her to calm down. Interviewer: Just to clarify, the iPad, unlike the TV screen, provides that calm, you mean? Mother: No, because with the iPad, she can sit and browse by herself. Interviewer: Yes, right, it’s more her own time. Mother: Yes, it becomes cosy, more private. (Luna, 3 years)
The last quote shows the mother’s reflection on the comparison between the large flat screen in the living room and the daughter’s own tablet. The latter is perceived by the parent as cozier and more private for the daughter, as she can just sit still and choose what video clips to watch on her own. Using the theoretical lens of domestication, attention is turned to the process of objectification, considering where media are placed and why (Silverstone et al., 1992). The tablet forms a different type of spatial arrangement and engagement compared to the screen on the wall, which better helps the daughter to relax after an intense day at the daycare centre. Hence, television viewing on the tablet is also formed by the temporal aspect of a child’s daily life (cf. Silverstone et al., 1992). Similar examples were seen for children with their own tablet. For example, Figure 6, from the second visit to family 5, shows Maj, a 3-year and 4-month-old girl, relaxing in bed while watching animated children’s movies on her tablet. Maj watching television programmes on her tablet in bed (3 years and 4 months).
Before watching, Maj spends much time creating her private space in the bedroom with a cover and all her teddy bears. Maj is, as Couldry (2004) would describe, self-reflective in her bed arrangements, including using the iPad on her own.
Conclusion
This article approaches platformisation from a user perspective, focusing on how the social practices of 0–3-year-olds are organised around television viewing (cf. Poell et al., 2019). We argue that the increased platformisation of family life, where different screen media and their platforms can be used anytime and anywhere (Abeele et al., 2018), necessitates examining television viewing as a set of multidimensional practices embedded and integrated into various domestic processes at home. Television viewing not only occurs on different digital screen media but also holds important multiple meanings in young children’s daily social activities, forming what we label as television practices. In his critical research review on children and media, Storm-Mathisen (2016) concludes that while researchers refer to children’s media practices, they rely heavily on surveys and interview data where parents and children verbally describe media use. Practice-led studies that include non-linguistic aspects of what children do with media and their real-life practices are almost non-existent, posing a challenge for future research. By using the research design ‘A Day in the Life’ and the theoretical framework of media practices and domestication processes, this study addresses this future challenge and highlights a knowledge gap in previous research on younger children and television.
This study identified four recurrent television practices: play, togetherness, meals and daily routine management. These practices show that young children’s television viewing is not an isolated activity but is incorporated into various domestic processes, reflecting the mediated digital world they are growing up in. The data show how these practices occur regularly and are not random, but rather happen with self-reflective reasoning. The identified practices are circumstantial, varying depending on the specific needs of the child and the family. Moreover, focusing on what children do while watching television highlights their capacity to act. The identified practices show identify that television viewing is an important means to facilitate, coordinate and initiate other social practices in modern family life. This article, using the theoretical lens of domestication theory and media practices, explores the relational, temporal and spatial aspects of screen media platforms in family life. The anytime and anyplace feature of digital media (Abeele et al., 2018) is utilised, resulting in new and extended ways of incorporating screen media into a young child’s daily activities. The material shows that television viewing on various mobile screen media should be understood in relation to other social practices, such as brushing teeth, seeking relaxation or watching favourite television content on YouTube at the kitchen table to facilitate daily eating habits.
Participating children mostly watched television clips on YouTube. While the platformisation of family life, with increased access to mobile media, allows us to use these platforms anywhere, the empirical data show that the TV screen’s spatial arrangement in the living room has not changed much since its introduction in the 1950s. The theoretical lens of domestication processes helps us understand how screen media are appropriated and incorporated into a young child’s life, and how the spatial arrangement in front of the flat large screen still forms the core of the living room. This space remains important for both shared and individual mediated and non-mediated activities, including, for example, practices of play and practices of togetherness.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research received funding from the Swedish Research Council (DIGIKIDS project, Grant Number: 2018-01261).
Ethics approval
Ethics approval was approved by the regional review board (Etikprövningsnämnden Lund EPN) dnr 2017/430..
