Child Smartphone Interaction A Techno Behavioral Study

Abstract

In this child-smartphone interaction study, I conducted fifteen experiments to assess the ability, benefits and negative effects of smartphone usage on children. newline It was found that Fitts law is not applicable to the interaction of children aged four to ten years with smartphones. The number of touchscreen gestures that the children could perform (F = 14.287, P lt 0.05)and the number of in-app prompting techniques they could follow (F = 53.252, P lt 0.05)varied significantly with age. Children aged seven to ten have longer eye fixations while reading from smartphone in comparison to computer and printed sheets (P lt 0.05). Children aged seven and eight years preferred (55%)using an augmented realityapp and could solve problems when instructed on a video call. newline The average attention span of the children aged four to six years, seven and eight years and nine and ten years while watching a video on a smartphone was approximately 3 minutes, 4 minutes and 9 minutes, respectively (F = 78.173, P lt 0.05). Children learn to use various features of drawing apps between two and twelve years of age and learn to perform both textual query based search and voice search by seven years of age. The number of words that the children could learn varied significantly (P lt 0.05) with both age (F = 30.420) and medium (F = 7.790). Children aged eleven and twelve years can be attracted to mathematics by using a smartphone app but thisimproved their performanceonly marginally (P gt 0.05). Children aged seven years can be taught computational thinking through smartphone apps. newline newline Overuse of smartphone lead to conduct problems and hyperactivity among children. Children aged four to ten years were exposed to violent graphics almost daily.Children can serve as design partners for developing apps for children of the same age group. newline newline A mathematical model was developed to help in identifying niche apps and determining the level of difficulty of apps. A thirty point guideline for parents, schoolteachers and digital content designers was framed.