Relationship of Gadget and Socioemotional Development in Children

The presence of gadgets in children’s environment has made them an inevitable and increasingly normative component of 21st-century life. Over the last three decades, the accessibility and usage of gadgets have increased among young children. One of the effects of gadget usage on children is self-isolating from social life and lack of emotional management. The objective of the pilot study was to examine the frequency of gadget use among pre-schoolers. Forty parents of preschoolers, aged 4 to 6 years, participated in the study. Twenty-two of the children were boys and 18 were girls. Majority of the sample were Malays. This study employed the Family Media Ecology model to understand the way in which media is used by the family members and to determine the extent to which media patterns either promote or interfere with early learning. The parents were administered the Malay version of the Developmental Profile 3 (DP-3) to measure a child’s development on social-emotional. Results showed that most families owned a smartphone (95%), paid TV/ASTRO (72.5%), and had a laptop/desktop (70%). The duration of gadget use among children was much lower during the school day than during the school holiday. Specifically, during school days, 70% and 17.5% of the children used gadgets at a moderate and high level, respectively. During school holidays, 32.5% and 57.5% of the children used gadgets at a moderate and high level, respectively. The analyses revealed there are negative relationships between both gadgets use during school days (r=-.232, p>.05) and school holidays (r=-.112, p>.05) and the socioemotional development of children, which however, is not significant. The findings have important implication that is to take necessary steps toward regulating gadget use among children in Malaysia.