Better understanding for better design: Virtual diary entries to learn from geographically and economically diverse families about their young children’s media use

The most recent studies with nationally representative data indicate that 5-to-8-year-old children spend over an hour each day engaging with digital content on mobile devices and suggest that this number is increasing. While over 95% of parents with young children have a smart phone in the home, concerns about differential benefits of technology for those with greater and fewer socioeconomic resources remain in terms of how selection of content and patterns of engagement might impact learning and development. In this spotlight presentation we share how digital resources are used at home for learning by an economically and geographically diverse sample of 5-10-year-olds during a week. We also share a novel method of remote ethnographic data collection through virtual diary entries.