Tag Archives: research

You may have heard that television programming in the 1960s was called a “vast wasteland.” by then-FCC Chairman Newton Minow. From the beginning, Lloyd Morrisett and I were both convinced that television – which was capturing the attention of children as nothing else was – did have the power to educate as well as to entertain and we set out to prove it. It was back in 1966 when I wrote my original report, The Potential Uses of Television in…

Young adults face many options when they go online—they might learn a new skill or lurk on a Discord channel; make a new friend or mock an existing one; create content or consume it. My research focuses on why young women choose to pursue positive opportunities new technology offers instead of risky or harmful activities. To answer this question, I analyzed the results from two large scale surveys of British teenagers, ran a quasi-experiment with 100 American teenagers attending a…

Growing up in the 1980’s, I played with a lot of toys and technology. My first experience with a computer was an Apple IIe at school, where I played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. At home, my technology-enabled toys consisted of a Speak and Spell that would repeat what I would type, and  video game consoles like the Atari 2600 and Nintendo. When I look back, I don’t recall ever thinking these were creepy experiences. The Speak and…

A recent study commissioned by Iridescent revealed 78% of underrepresented families want to learn more about technologies like AI despite their mixed emotions about how these technologies work and their potential impact on jobs. The online study, conducted by VeraQuest, found that while 80% of low-income families believe technologies like AI will take away too many jobs, the interest to learn about new,  “mysterious” technologies is high. However, access to these educational opportunities remain a significant barrier; more than 75% of…

Last month, researchers AnneMarie McClain and Lacey Hilliard presented some exciting findings from a a study they conducted around classroom media and socio-emotional learning among elementary school students at the International Communication Association Conference in Prague. We invited them to share details of the project as well as the findings that emerged from their investigation.    At the May 2018 International Communication Association Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, we presented some findings from our longitudinal study, the Arthur Interactive Media (AIM)…

Ask Americans where kids are learning the skills they’ll need to participate in the 21st-century workforce, and you’ll likely hear the same answer over and over again: home or school. That’s how most members of the U.S. public respond when asked about where learning takes place, according to the work we’ve done at the FrameWorks Institute, a communications think tank in Washington, DC. And that way of thinking applies to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, our new report…

Researchers and practitioners have long known that when it comes to digital media for kids, quality is key. But what does it mean for a children’s app to be good or bad? How do specific features and design decisions affect the children who engage with them? If parents want to find high-quality content, what exactly should they be looking for? As part of a team of collaborators at Microsoft Research, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington, I…

In January 2018, Michael Levine participated in a panel conversation on young children’s media use hosted by Common Sense Media and the Brooklyn Public Library. Here, in the second of a two-part series, are some of his comments regarding the Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight report. (See the first part here.)   The data from the Zero to Eight report showed that lower-income kids are spending much more time on devices than higher-income kids. If you just…

In January 2018, Michael Levine participated in a panel conversation on young children’s media use hosted by Common Sense Media and the Brooklyn Public Library. Here, in the first of a two-part series, are some of his comments regarding the Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight report.    What does the research say about the effects of technology on kids’ development and learning? And based on this, what stood out to you in the data? We know quite…

If you were born after 1990, are the parent or grandparent of someone born after 1990, or a children’s media producer of any age, Ready To Learn (RTL) has probably touched your life. Launched in 1994, RTL is a U.S. Department of Education-funded initiative that provides about $25 million annually for the creation of educational media (TV, computer games, apps, and more) designed to promote school readiness. RTL funding has gone to the production of legacy media properties that existed…