Small children’s use of digital media: consuming or creating?

Young children are using digital media and technologies at home as well as in institutional settings. Most often this use is consumptive rather than creative, and apps and streaming platforms have become children’s preferred points of access to video content, games, and online social networks. To reverse this development requires active support and engagements from adults – especially parents and caretakers. As this chapter shows, such support is not equally distributed and available for all children but is dependent on socio-economic background and to some extent on gender. The chapter focuses specifically on the media use of children aged 5–6 years, and it raises the overall question of how young children’s media use is related to becoming active citizens in an increasingly digitised society (Johansen & Larsen 2016; Bindslev, With, Winnie & Brixtofte Petersen 2018). It also asks: How can structural inequalities be overcome and how do children develop a critical and reflexive media literacy.

"Adults should to a much greater extent be able to support and engage themselves in these practices. When socio-demographic differences between children manifest themselves in concrete media practices, I argue that the role of the early educational system becomes even more prevalent in attempting to overcome and compensate for these differences." (p. 65-66)