Conference Agenda

Introduction: Digital devices have become ubiquitous in family environments, yet their impact on parent-child relationships and child development remains a growing area of concern. While technology offers potential benefits for families, evidence suggests that parental device use during interactions, termed "technoference," may disrupt relational processes important for healthy child development. This disruption may confer risk for mental health problems. This study synthesizes existing research on associations between parent technoference and child mental health outcomes through systematic review and meta-analysis, examining effect sizes across internalizing (e.g., depression, anxiety, withdrawal) and externalizing (e.g., aggression, bullying, conduct problems) problem domains and identifying key moderators.

Methods: Following PRISMA guidelines, we conducted a comprehensive search across multiple databases through May 2025. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted using correlation coefficients, with moderator analyses examining study design, sample characteristics, measurement approaches, and outcome subtypes.

Results: Fourty-nine studies (N = 52,938 children) met inclusion criteria. Meta-analyses revealed moderate, statistically significant associations between parent technoference and children’s internalizing (r = .278, 95% CI [.230, .326]) and externalizing problems (r = .212, 95% CI [.162, .261]). Equivalence testing confirmed no meaningful differences between symptom domains, suggesting technoference disrupts general regulatory processes rather than specific mental health pathways. For internalizing problems, longitudinal studies showed smaller effects relative to cross-sectional studies. For externalizing problems, aggressive behaviours showed stronger associations with technoference than bullying behaviours, possibly reflecting both children's escalating strategies to compete with devices and parents' greater awareness of home-based aggressive behaviours compared to peer-related bullying.

Conclusions: From an attachment perspective, technoference may compromise parental sensitivity and responsiveness during critical developmental periods, increasing risk for internalizing and externalizing problems. These findings highlight technoference as a meaningful risk factor warranting clinical attention and family-centred intervention approaches.

Sensitive caregiving plays a critical role in child development. With increasing digital device use among parents, concerns have emerged that technology use may interfere with sensitive caregiving, a concept known as “technoference”. Prior research has linked parental technoference to child and adolescent socio-emotional problems, but far less is known about its impact both in the infancy period and on language and cognitive outcomes.

This 30-minute laboratory-based observational study in which caregivers were unaware of being recorded at the time of the parent-child interaction aims to examine the association between observed parental technoference, caregiver sensitivity, and caregiver-reported child language and developmental milestone outcomes.

Participants included 152 caregiver–child dyads recruited from a large urban area in Canada (94.7% mothers; mean child age = 27.7 months). Caregiver-reported surveys asked about caregiver and child screen use. Caregiver–child interactions were video-recorded during a free-play task in a laboratory playroom, with caregivers unaware that technology use would be a focus of later coding. Parental technoference was subsequently coded from video recordings by trained independent raters (e.g., frequency, duration of phone use). Caregiver sensitivity was coded using the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort. Child outcomes were assessed using validated caregiver-report questionnaires (MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory; Ages and Stages Questionnaire). Data collection and observational coding are complete, and statistical analyses are currently underway.

Findings will advance understanding of how parental technology use during shared play relates to early child development.

Parent technology use has been linked to variations in parent-child interaction quality and child outcomes. However, evidence suggests that these links are shaped not only by the presence of technology, but also how parents use their devices. Parental technology use has been conceptualized as an emotion regulation strategy, and attachment theory posits that emotion regulation operates differently across attachment representations . This symposium will present findings from a study that examines between-group differences of technoference based on parents’ attachment representations.

The study draws on 50 parent-child dyads with children aged 4-7 years. Parental technoference is assessed by using both observational and self-report approaches. Observed technoference, focusing on parental smartphone use during interaction (SUDI), is coded during a waiting-room task, while self-reported technoference is measured with Technology Device Interference Scale (TDIS). Parental attachment representations are assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Analyses examine whether observed and self-reported technoference are associated with parents’ attachment representations.

Preliminary one-way ANOVAs comparing secure versus insecure attachment groups suggested emerging differences in observed smartphone use, with effects approaching significance for both pickup frequency, (F(1, 18) = 3.10, p = .095) and total time on phone (F(1, 18) = 3.68, p = .071). Self-reported technoference was not associated with attachment pattern (F(1, 18) = 0.09, p = .77). Descriptively, insecure parents engaged in more frequent and longer smartphone use than secure parents, highlighting a pattern that will be examined further in our final, larger sample.

Spearman correlations indicated that greater maternal neglect reported during the AAI was associated with higher observed smartphone use during parent-child interactions, including both pickup frequency (r = .53, p = .017) and total time on phone (r = .49, p = .028), whereas higher coherence on the AAI was linked to lower observed use for both pickup frequency (r = −.59, p = .006) and total time on phone (r = −.59, p = .006).

The Children of the 2020s (COT20s) study is the UK’s latest nationally representative birth cohort, commissioned by the Department for Education to provide robust, policy-relevant evidence on early childhood development. It follows families with children born between September and November 2021 with repeated assessments from infancy to age 5 years. A key focus is early exposure to digital media and its longitudinal associations with developmental trajectories in language, cognition, motor and socio-emotional domains.

The cohort comprises 8,628 families at baseline. Digital media exposure was measured by parent report at 9 months and 2 years in the main study survey. Language, cognition, motor and socio-emotional outcomes were captured at 9, 15, 22, 27 and 36 months via the study’s embedded smartphone app BabySteps, using the Caregiver Reported Early Development Instruments (CREDI). Longitudinal data were analysed using mixed effects models to estimate developmental trajectories and their associations with screen use.

Findings: At age 9.5 months, 72% of children in the cohort were reported to watch some television, videos or other digital content daily, with an average of 41 minutes per day among viewers. 7% had daily screen time exceeding 2 hours, while 28% had no reported screen exposure (Bernardi et al., 2023). Longitudinal modelling with the subsample (n = 2,490) who completed at least three waves will allow estimation of developmental trajectories and their associations with early screen use.

Conclusions: The COT20s study provides up-to-date, nationally representative estimates of early digital media exposure and rich developmental data across multiple time points. Although full longitudinal results are pending release at the end of January, this work will be ready for presentation and offers critical insight into how contemporary patterns of screen use relate to early development in a generation of children growing up post-COVID-19 and amid broader socio-economic shifts.