September 17, 2021

The vast majority of families in Singapore possess a multitude of digital devices for their young children to use. The usefulness of these devices has proved to be prominent, especially in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, there exists a constant struggle in managing young children’s use of these devices so that they may derive maximum benefit while experiencing minimal harm.

Excessive device use can lead to reduction in interaction with people as well as increasing preschoolers’ proneness to throwing tantrums. At the same time, these devices can provide a wealth of enjoyable and educational content for preschoolers. Therefore, parents play a critical role in managing this precarious balance of device use for their children.

In ‘Mind the gap – income divide in children’s use of digital devices’ (The Straits Times, September 2021), Professor Wei-Jun Jean Yeung (NUS Department of Sociology and Centre for Family and Population Research) and Professor Lim Sun Sun (SUTD Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Cluster) write about the implications of young children from lower-income families spending more unsupervised time on digital devices than children from higher-income families.

The Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG Leads) conducted by the Centre for Family and Population Research at NUS found that children up to the age of six who lived in rental flats spent 4 hours and 28 minutes a week on electronic devices – almost four times longer than children who lived in private condominiums and landed properties, who spent a much shorter 1 hour and 12 minutes on their devices.

Prof Yeung and Prof Lim explain that this difference could be due to children from higher-income families having greater access to other activities such as professional childcare and enrichment classes. Children living in rental flats, on the other hand, had less parental supervision. They also tended to use their devices more for games than for learning.

While half of children living in private condominiums and landed property have 50 books or more, only one of 10 children in rental flats had the same number. Half of the parents from the former housing type read to their children every day, while only 14 percent of those from rental flats read to their children daily, and 31 percent do not read to them at all.

Prof Yeung and Prof Lim also point out that digital devices could potentially help bridge the learning gap between children of different income groups if used properly. However, parents from lower-income families are typically less knowledgeable about where and how to access such educational content. They therefore assert that support for these families should extend to boosting parents’ digital literacy and allowing them to understand the difference between different types of device use.

Other suggestions raised were device loan programmes where families could be loaned tablets with pre-loaded specially curated educational apps, and widening access to educational online materials through public libraries.

Prof Yeung and Prof Lim emphasize that more must be done to level the playing field between the two ends of the socio-economic spectrum. The systemic advantages that children from higher-income families have are only further amplified by the kind of digital device use they partake in as compared to their peers from lower-income families.

Read the article here.