Importance of children’s social development

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For the early years of a child’s life, social development is an important aspect a child needs in order to properly shape their personality and their interactions and relationships with others. With digital media, this would help the child learn and grow more, by reinforcing and influencing their skills such as language, creativity, and social interactions. Digital media can enhance a child’s language skills through engaging songs, it can help develop their creativity through interactive content by using creative narratives to fuel their imagination, and lastly, foster the child’s social skills and critical thinking skills through the digital media that teaches them useful values and morals that they can learn. These lessons would then help them communicate more effectively with their peers or children with the same interests as them as they grow older.

According to a news post from United Nations International School of Hanoi (UNIS Hanoi), social development is important in early childhood as it would benefit them for the rest of their lives. They have stated that children engaging in social interactions at an early age would help develop their sense of language, making them communicate better, understand language better, and express themselves better. “This helps them build stronger relationships with others and develop better communication skills, which are essential for success in life.” Is as stated in their news post. The post from UNUIS Hanoi also explained that social development improves a child’s learning abilities as well as boosting self-esteem. They explained that strong social skills make the child be more engaged in learning and are able to perform better in school, while children who are comfortable in interacting with others and are able to form positive relationships are able to be more confidence and have a higher self-esteem.

Delving into the development of language skills, Children and Screens, an institute of Digital Media and Child Development, helps us understand more about the relationship between language development and digital media through the thoughts of psychologists and childhood researchers, by giving parents some tips regarding early childhood language development in the digital world. Rebecca Dore, Director of Research Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State University had reported that “high quality educational media can promote vocabulary, and that educational media is positively associated with children’s developing language skills”. But then she also notes that this is only applicable to children within the age range of two and a half years of age to three years old and up. “younger children actually have a lot more trouble learning new information or words from media… One seminal study showed that toddlers didn’t learn new words from baby media like the Baby Einstein series, even when parents thought they did.” Explained by Dore regarding the age younger than 2 years.

According to a posted blog Maryville University regarding the technology and children, that many children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, had an increase of technology usage due to the effects of the Covid Pandemic. Because of the pandemic, the increased technological usage was not only for relieving boredom or stress, but for also doing school work through a phone or computer. From the posted blog of Maryville University, there are less obvious positive effects that technology have on children, such as children being able to interact and connect with their friends and family through video chat, children being able to be taught digital literacy skills, and promote hand-eye coordination along with their development of language and problem-solving skills. Although, it is important to also note the negative effects that technology has on children. From the American Psychological Association (APA), it is recommended for children ages 2 to 5 to have one hour of high-quality programming for children per day. APA suggests that parents focus on the content on children’s screens and how their children interact with it. If left unchecked and without regulation, young children could receive developmental and behavioral problems such as lack of attention, aggressive behaviors, greater risk of obesity, physical inactivity, and sleep disturbances and poor-quality sleep. Other major negative effects include, exposure to harmful online content and sexual exploitation, cyber bullying, and increased anxiety and low self-esteem behavioral problems.

The APA gave recommendations regarding children’s media usage:

  • For children under 18 months, avoid screen-based media except video chatting.
  • For children 18 months to 24 months, parents should choose high-quality programming and watch with their children.
  • For children 2 to 5, limit screen time to one hour per day of high-quality programming.
  • For children 6 and up, establish consistent limits on the time spent using media and the types of media.

It is also important to note that APA had stated that, instead of focusing on the amount of time children spend on digital media, parents should look at and consider the content of what that media has, and the context in which the children are using it.

Digital media can help a child’s social development by helping them be more engaged with others of the same age and same interests. With digital media helping on developing the child’s language skill, they are then able to understand and learn more, with better understanding of language, they are able to express themselves better, and with children being better at expressing themselves, they can better connect, interact, and communicate with others, thus making them more likely develop their social skills. But it is also important to keep note of the negatives that are apparent, and always seek to monitor the behavior of your children in order to mitigate further problems and complications that might arrive.

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