Abstract
Mobile devices provide additional opportunities for families with young children to seek, exchange, and use information. This paper presents an exploratory interview study with representatives from 19 families. The goal of the study was to examine how young children and their families use mobile devices and whether this usage includes information seeking activities or other activities that can be linked to the children’s information behavior. Results indicate that the children show a great variety of information-related activities while using the mobile devices. Activities that may appear as pure entertainment at first glance also have to be considered in the context of the children’s information behavior. The results contribute to a better understanding of young children’s experiences in relation to mobile devices and raise new questions about the information behavior of young children in general.
Keywords
- Children
- Information behavior
- Mobile devices
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options

References
Rideout, V.: The Common Sense census: media use by kids age zero to eight. Common Sense Media, San Francisco (2017)
Stal, J., Paliwoda-Pękosz, G.: A SWOT analysis of using mobile technology in knowledge providing in organisations. In: International Conference on ICT Management for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies (ICTM2018), Wrocław, Poland, 22–23 October 2018 (2018)
Kinder Medien Studie (2019). https://kinder-medien-studie.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/KMS2019_Berichtsband.pdf. Accessed 13 Sept 2019
Agosto, D.E., Hughes-Hassell, S.: People, places, and questions: an investigation of the everyday life information-seeking behaviors of urban young adults. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 27(2), 141–163 (2005)
Bilal, D., Kirby, J.: Differences and similarities in information seeking: children and adults as Web users. Inf. Process. Manag. 38(5), 649–670 (2002)
Cooper, L.Z.: A case study of information-seeking behavior in 7-year-old children in a semistructured situation. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 53(11), 904–922 (2002)
Foss, E., et al.: Children’s search roles at home: implications for designers, researchers, educators, and parents. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 63, 558–573 (2012)
Meyers, E.M., Fisher, K.E., Marcoux, E.: Making sense of an information world: the everyday-life information behavior of preteens. Libr. Q. 79(3), 301–341 (2009)
Todd, R.J.: Adolescents of the information age: patterns of information seeking and use, and implications for information professionals. Sch. Libr. Worldwide 9(2), 27–46 (2003)
Vanderschantz, N., Hinze, A., Cunningham, S.J.: “Sometimes the internet reads the question wrong”: children’s search strategies & difficulties. Proc. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 51(1), 1–10 (2014)
Vanderschantz, N., Hinze, A.: A study of children’s search query formulation habits. In: Proceedings of the 31st International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference (2017). Article 7
Given, L., Winkler, D.C., Willson, R., Davidson, C., Danby, S., Thorpe, K.: Watching young children “play” with information technology: everyday life information seeking in the home. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 38, 344–352 (2016)
Spink, A., Heinström, J.: Information behaviour development in early childhood. In: Spink, A., Heinström, J. (eds.) New Directions in Information Behaviour, pp. 245–256. Emerald, Bingley (2011)
Barriage, S.C., Searles, D.K.: Astronauts and sugar beets: young girls’ information seeking in family interactions. In: Grove, A. (ed.) Proceedings of the 78th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Information Science with Impact: Research in and for the Community. Richard B. Hill, Silver Spring (2015). Article 27
Barriage, S.: ‘Talk, talk and more talk’: parental perceptions of young children’s information practices related to their hobbies and interests. Inf. Res. 21(3) (2015). Paper 721. http://InformationR.net/ir/21-3/paper721.html
Agarwal, N.K.: Use of touch devices by toddlers or preschoolers: observations and findings from a single-case study. In: Bilal, D., Beheshti, J. (eds.) New Directions in Children’s and Adolescent’s Information Behavior Research, pp. 3–37. Emerald, Bingley (2014)
Saldaña, J.: The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2013)
Abrahamson, J.A., Fisher, K.E.: ‘What’s past is prologue’: towards a general model of lay information mediary behaviour. Inf. Res. 12(4), 1–21 (2007)
Case, D., Given, L.M.: Looking for Information. A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior, 4th edn. Emerald, Bingley (2016)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Schlebbe, K. (2020). Watching, Playing, Making, Learning: Young Children’s Use of Mobile Devices. In: Sundqvist, A., Berget, G., Nolin, J., Skjerdingstad, K. (eds) Sustainable Digital Communities. iConference 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12051. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43686-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43687-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)