Phone Use Reduced Mother-to-Infant Speech by 16 Percent: Study

Brief phone use, rather than phone use lasting at least seven minutes, resulted in even fewer words spoken per minute.

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Phone use may reduce mothers’ interactions with their infants, new research suggests.

The study, published on June 26 in Child Development, found that mothers spoke to their infants 16 percent less while using their cellphones. The finding raises questions about how technology may interfere with family time and children’s language acquisition.

“Parental phone use is not uniformly ‘negative’ from the perspective of child speech inputs but rather may have different effects depending on how and when phones are used, with potentially distinct effects on children’s language development,” the study authors wrote.

Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin found that phone use lasting only one to two minutes was more strongly linked to less mother-to-infant speech. Mothers also tended to speak to their babies less when phone use coincided with mealtimes or family members returning home, such as between noon and 1 p.m. and between 3 and 4 p.m.

“A growing number of studies are finding associations between parental phone use and children’s language development. We wanted to look at the way phone use may impact the quantity of speech infants hear as a potential mechanism for this connection,” study authors Miriam Mikhelson and Kaya de Barbaro said in a press release.

“Our results ... provide ... validity in the study of phone use behavior and language development.”

Brief Phone Use Reduced Speech More

The researchers evaluated 16 mother–infant pairs with infants averaging 4.1 months old. Data were collected over a week, totaling 16,673 minutes of synchronized, real-world phone use and audio.

“Technoference, which refers to an interruption in a social interaction caused by device use ... has attracted attention within the field of developmental psychology, particularly in the context of parental phone use disrupting parent–child interactions,” the authors wrote.

Brief phone use lasting one or two minutes reduced the mother’s speech output the most, with mothers’ per-minute word count reduced by 26 percent. More extended phone use of at least seven minutes showed a word-count reduction of 12 percent.

The study authors cited 2016 research showing that parents reported that technology interfered with parenting. Sixty-five percent of parents reported that technology interfered with playtime, and 53 percent reported it interfered during free time spent with their children, which did not include play, feeding, or changing.

Another paper found that 10 percent of parents reported that their social media use negatively affected the quality of their parental supervision.

The authors speculated that their findings concerning the amount of time spent on the phone might be linked to the types of phone applications being used. Shorter durations of phone use might correspond with checking an email or responding to a text message, which requires more of a parent’s attention. “However, we did not have data on the specific applications in use. Future work should further distinguish phone use types from phone or audio records, for example, use of phone or video calls versus social media, texting, or email,” the authors wrote.

Ms. de Barbaro, an assistant professor in the University of Texas Department of Psychology, encourages parents to do their best to care for their children.

“It is possible for parents to use their phones in ways that do not interrupt their interactions with their infants—for example, when they wouldn’t otherwise be engaging or talking with them,” she told The Epoch Times.

“What is special about this work is the fact that we are collecting these data in the home—for up to three days—as families do what they would normally do together, while most research takes place in artificial lab settings that constrain parent-and-child behavior,” Ms. de Barbaro said.

Face-to-Face Interactions Essential to Language Development

Other research has highlighted the importance of maintaining parent–child interaction.

Research from the University of Washington found that a child’s social interactions at 5 months increased neural activity and language development at later ages. Face-to-face interactions with infants, be it speech, mutual eye-gazing, or smiling, can be essential for initial language learning.

Another study that followed children from ages 2 to 48 months showed that children mimic the speech of the adults in their lives. After analyzing over 40,000 hours of child-centered audio, the authors found that for every 100 adult vocalizations per hour, children produced 27 additional vocalizations.