"Growing Up Digital": A Barnard College Talk

When it comes to children and digital media, it's the content, not the medium, that matters. This was the clear message from Rosemarie Truglio, senior VP of education and research at Sesame Workshop and the speaker at "Growing Up Digital: Keeping the Human Connection," a talk held at Barnard College in New York City on February 7.

"It's not the technology, it's how we use it," Truglio said. "We've been blaming technology for years," she said — from writing itself ("Socrates said, 'Now everyone's going to read; what's going to happen to our memory?'"), to the printing press, to television, to computers. Naysayers have blamed all of these and more for corrupting us in one way or another.

But whether it's TV sets or iPads, these are simply tools, Truglio said. It's what we do with them that's important. "You could watch really bad television, or you could watch really good television," she reminded listeners in a packed lecture hall. The same is true of using apps, games and other digital products made for kids.

The talk was part of the Barnard Center for Toddler Development's 40th anniversary celebration. By a show of hands, most in the audience were parents of toddlers. Others included teachers, students and preschoolers' parents.

Truglio made the case that not all kids' apps are created equal by demonstrating some popular preschool apps from Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind "Sesame Street" (you might know it by its former name, the Children's Television Workshop). She walked through several features she said parents should look for in apps: A section of parent tips that extend the learning. The ability to customize the learning experience (you might want to shut off Grover's voice, say, and use your own). True assessment of your child's progress. (The majority of app "trackers" for parents only tell you the frequency with which your child does something, Truglio said, such as play with the letter "F." "They are not assessing learning," she warned.)

And watch out for apps that make it easy for kids to run up your credit card in the app store, she said. In Sesame Workshop apps, links for making purchases are in a parents section only and are protected by "baby gates" — extra confirmations that prevent kids from clicking back to app stores and buying willy-nilly. (For more on what makes a good app, see Sesame Workshop's best practices for designing touchscreen content for preschoolers, released in December.)

Another key point that Truglio drove home: Use digital tools with your child. Toddlers especially, who are learning language, need to hear adults' open-ended questions and descriptive language, she said. "When you take quality content and you put it on an interactive medium, and then you stir it around with parent-child interaction, you get better results than if your child is just by him- or herself interacting with the game."

Audience questions at the end ran the gamut: Where can I find good ratings for apps online? How do you instill good habits from the get-go and preempt addiction to Facebook, et al, later? How much time should a 4-year-old be allowed to spend on a digital device? And from one parent whose young son is obsessed with watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, "What do you think of Mickey Mouse?"

Truglio's answers? Look to Common Sense Media and KinderTown for solid app ratings; model appropriate behavior with your own devices, avoiding addiction yourself; screen time should not exceed one and a half to two hours a day (and this includes all screen time); and the child is learning something from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which is about problem-solving. "It's not a bad show. He's going to be OK," Truglio reassured this parent. "I would like him to watch Big Bird a little bit more, but he'll be OK."