Abstract
A touchscreen media habitus explores embodied dimensions of young children’s touchscreen media use by drawing on qualitative research with parents and families, and from analysis of user interface (UI) and mobile app developer literature, which encodes touchscreen interaction through the design constraints and possibilities of gesture input techniques. Connecting this research and analysis with phenomenologically informed cultural theory, particularly as it relates to research on mobile technologies, this chapter describes the emergence of a form of digital dexterity that is understood through the concept of touchscreen habitus. That is, the cultivation of young children’s embodied dispositions, conduct, and competence towards mobile- and touch-based media technologies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Acland, C.R., ed. 2007. Residual Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Apperley, T. 2013. The Body of the Gamer: Game Art and Gestural Excess. Digital Creativity 24 (2): 145–156.
Benjamin, W. 1999. The Arcades Project (trans: Eiland, H., and McLaughlin, K.). Cambridge: The Belknap Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buckleitner, W. 2011. A Taxonomy of Multi-Touch Interaction Styles, by Stage. Children’s Technology Review 18 (11): 10–11.
Buxton, B. 2007. Multi-Touch Systems That I Have Known and Loved. http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html. Accessed 06 Jan 2014.
Chiong, C., and C. Shuler. 2010. Learning: Is There an App for That? Investigations of Young Children’s Usage and Learning with Mobile Devices and Apps. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.
Connor, S. 2000. Making an issue of cultural phenomenology. Critical Quarterly 42 (1): 2–6.
Cramer, F., and M. Fuller. 2008. Interface. In Software Studies: A Lexicon, ed. M. Fuller, 149–153. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Cristia, A., and A. Seidl. 2015. Parental Reports on Touch Screen Use in Early Childhood. PLoS One 10 (6): 1–20.
Csordas, T.J. 1999. Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology. In Perspectives on Embodiment: The Intersections of Nature and Culture, ed. G. Weiss and H.F. Haber, 143–162. London: Routledge.
Farman, J. 2012. Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media. London: Routledge.
Highmore, B. 2011. Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday. London: Routledge.
Hourcade, J.P., S.L. Mascher, D. Wu, and L. Pantoja. 2015. Look, My Baby Is Using an iPad! An Analysis of YouTube Videos of Infants and Toddlers Using Tablets. In Proceedings of CHI 15, 1915–1924. New York: ACM Press.
Ihde, D. 1990. Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
———. 1993. Postphenomenology: Essays in the Postmodern Context. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Loke, L., and T. Robertson. 2011. The Lived Body in Design: Mapping the Terrain. In Proceedings of OZCHI ‘11, 181–184. New York: ACM Press.
Marsh, J.L., D. Plowman, J. Yamada-Rice, C. Bishop, J. Lahmar, and F. Scott. 2018. Play and Creativity in Young Children’s Use of Apps. British Journal of Educational Technology 49 (5): 870–882.
Mauss, M. 1973. Techniques of the Body (trans: Brewster, B.). Economy and Society, 2: 70–88.
McCarthy, J., and P. Wright. 2004. Technology as experience. Interactions 11 (5): 42–43.
Merleau-Ponty, M. 2012. The Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge.
Mowlabocus, S. 2016a. The ‘Mastery’ of the Swipe: Smartphones, Transitional Objects and Interstitial Time. First Monday 21 (10). http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6950/5630
———. 2016b. Feel the Quality: The Haptic Economy of Unboxing Videos on YouTube. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). Berlin: AoIR.
Nansen, B., and D. Jayemanne. 2016. Infants, Interfaces, and Intermediation: Digital Parenting in the Production of ‘iPad Baby’ YouTube Videos. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 60 (4): 587–603.
———. 2018. Young Children’s Touchscreen Habitats, Habituation, and Habitus / écrans tactiles, accoutumances et habitus des jeunes enfants. In Les cultures médiatiques de l’enfance et de la petite enfance, ed. Marlène Loicq, Aude Seurrat et Isabelle Féroc Dumez, pp. 114–125. Booke-e: Paris. (ISBN: 978-2-9549483-2-4).
Nansen, B., and R. Wilken. 2019. Techniques of the Tactile Body: A Cultural Phenomenology of Infants and Mobile Touchscreens. Convergence 25 (1): 60–76.
Nansen, B., F. Vetere, J. Downs, T. Robertson, M. Brereton, and J. Durick. 2014. Reciprocal Habituation: A Study of Older People and the Kinect. Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (ToCHI) 21 (3): 1–20. Article 18.
Nevski, E., and A. Siibak. 2016. The Role of Parents and Parental Mediation on 0–3-Year Olds’ Digital Play with Smart Devices: Estonian Parents’ Attitudes and Practices. Early Years: An International Research Journal 36 (3): 227–241.
Norman, D. 2010. Natural User Interfaces Are Not Natural. Interactions, May–June, 6–10.
Parisi, D. 2015. A Counterrevolution in the Hands: The Console Controller as an Ergonomic Branding Mechanism. Journal of Games Criticism 2 (1). http://gamescriticism.org/articles/parisi-2-1
Parisi, D., M. Paterson, and J.E. Archer. 2017. Haptic Media Studies. New Media and Society 19 (10): 1513–1522.
Prensky, M. 2001. Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon 9 (5): 1–6.
Richardson, I. 2012. Touching the Screen: A Phenomenology of Mobile Gaming and the iPhone. In Studying Mobile Media: Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the iPhone, ed. L. Hjorth, J. Burgess, and I. Richardson, 133–151. New York: Routledge.
Richardson, I., and L. Hjorth. 2017. Mobile Media, Domestic Play and Haptic Ethnography. New Media and Society 19 (10): 1653–1667.
Richardson, I., and A. Third. 2009. Cultural Phenomenology and the Material Culture of Mobile Media. In Material Culture and Technology in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Approaches, ed. P. Vannini, 145–156. New York: Peter Lang.
Richardson, I., and R. Wilken. 2009. Haptic vision, footwork, place-making: a peripatetic phenomenology of the mobile phone pedestrian. Second Nature: International Journal of Creative Media 2 (1): 22–41.
———. 2017. Mobile Media and Mediation: The Relational Ontology of Google Glass. In Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Perspectives on Media, ed. T. Markham and S. Rodgers, 113–123. New York: Peter Lang.
Shuler, C. 2009. iLearn: A Content Analysis of the iTunes App Store’s Education Section. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.
Simon, B. 2009. Wii Are Out of Control: Bodies, Game Screens and the Production of Gestural Excess. Loading 3 (4). http://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/65/59
Wellner, G. 2016. A Postphenomenological Inquiry of Cell Phones: Genealogies, Meanings, and Becomings. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Widgor, D., and D. Wixon. 2011. Brave NUI World: Designing Natural User Interfaces for Touch and Gesture. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann.
Yong Jin, D. 2015. Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture. New York: Routledge.
Zehle, S. 2012. The Autonomy of Gesture: Of Lifestream Logistics and Playful Profanations. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 13 (3): 340–353.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nansen, B. (2020). A Touchscreen Media Habitus. In: Young Children and Mobile Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49875-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49875-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49874-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49875-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)