“What and how much digital technology is currently used by young children, and to what effects?”
Digital technologies are rapidly changing. They are used with, and accessed by, even the very youngest children. Our global-first Australian Children of the Digital Age (ACODA) Longitudinal Study will investigate the extent, nature and ongoing effects of Australian children’s engagement with digital technologies.
We are the first study in the world to investigate children’s digital engagement at a population level, documenting and tracking patterns of digital engagement of more than 3000 Australian families and their children from birth to seven years of age.
ACODA has been designed to provide the big picture; to identify potential problems and unmet possibilities associated with digital technologies in early childhood. Our study will build new understandings to help identify policy and practice ‘hot spots’ for detailed investigation, with the aim of informing solutions and opportunities for optimisation for the diversity of Australian children, their families and society.
ACODA is uniquely transdisciplinary, intersecting across areas of Health, Education and Connectedness to provide a holistic view of children’s experiences and the impact of digital technologies.
Additionally, ACODA will identify how contemporary use of digital technology varies – across different social and geographical groups – along with other factors that relate to digital technology use; for example, characteristics of the child (such as gender, birth order), family make up (e.g., single parent, teen parents, dual income, high-tech use parents).
Sitting within the ACODA are nested studies that focus on the Healthy Child, Educated Child and Connected Child. These studies will use subsamples of either several hundred or several dozen participants from the Longitudinal Study. While they vary in design, methodological approaches and analytic frameworks, each of the programs link and connect with others to provide a holistic view of children’s experiences digital technologies and their impact.