TPP 334: Dr. Katie Davis on Digital Media’s Role in the Lives of Differently Wired Kids
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
48 min
1 speaker
3 chapters
transcribed 14 hours ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the purpose of Dr. Katie Davis’s book *Technology’s Child*?
Let's say you answer that question saying, well, this child's video game playing is interfering with other aspects of their life. So video games must be really bad then. You know, I argue in the book that probably what we need to be looking at is, well, what else is going on in that child's life that is compelling them to spend so much time playing video games? Perhaps that's a symptom of some other aspect in their lives that's not going so well. And perhaps this is actually a good coping strategy for them at that moment. And it's actually supporting them. It's providing them some sort of relief from an otherwise very challenging situation.
Welcome to Tilled Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Reber. My guest today is Dr. Katie Davis, a researcher on the impact of digital technologies on young people's learning, development, and well-being, and the author of the fascinating new book, Technology's Child, Digital Media's Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up. The world of technology is ever expanding and it is integrating into our lives so seamlessly that we often don't stop to consider what effect it's having on us and our children. In this conversation, Katie helps us understand what this impact is and what we want to consider surrounding our kids' use of tech.
Katie and I explore how technology is accelerating the full arc of child development, what the research says about the efficacy of apps that are sold as tools to develop kids' learning and things like executive function skills, and whether or not ADHD symptoms can be exacerbated by technology use. We also discussed gaming disorder and how to support children in their usage of social media while they're developing and exploring their identities. Dr. Katie Davis is Associate Professor at the University of Washington and Director of the UW Digital Youth Lab. Her latest book that we're discussing today, Technology's Child, brings clarity to what we know about technology's role in child development and provides guidance on how to help children of all ages make the most of their digital experiences.
Thank you so much. And now here's my conversation with Katie Davis. Hi there, Katie. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Debbie. It's great to be with you. I'm looking forward to getting into your work and your book and all things screen and tech and research and nerd out a little bit. But before we get into that, I've already read your bio, so we know your credentials, but I always like to know a little bit more about the person behind the credentials and why you got into doing this work.
Yeah, sure. So I've been researching kids and technology for almost 20 years now, which I can't believe. But before that, my very first professional hat, I guess, was an elementary school teacher. And I really always since the time I was a little kid, I wanted to be a teacher. I always would play teacher and I just loved it. And so that was always my goal to be a teacher and a writer. And so in the early to mid 2000s, I was an elementary school teacher. And it was just a fascinating time because it was really when technology was slowly but then very quickly becoming increasingly central to kids' lives, both inside the classroom and outside the classroom. And I was just filled with all these questions about how is this going to change technology?
and development and just how young people navigate the world. And so I just kept on returning to these questions and I decided to return to graduate school to study the role of technology in kids' lives and development and learning and wellbeing and all those things. And this was around 2005, 2006, right when Facebook was still very new. YouTube had just come out. The iPhone hadn't even come out. And so I've really been there researching this whole landscape for quite a while. And then in the last six years, it's taken on an added interest and importance to me because I'm now a parent myself.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
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