Impact of maternal smartphone use on language output
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Smartphones have not been critically assessed to the same extent as television to determine their potential impact on infant language development. Twenty-eight mother-infant dyads (Female = 17, Male = 11) 6 to 9 months-old (N = 13, M = 7.46 months, SD = 1.05) or 12 to 15 months-old (N = 15, M = 12.8 months, SD = 0.77) were recorded for 4 hours using the Language Environment Analysis device while maternal smartphone usage was tracked using a third-party application (RealizD or QualityTime). Previous research indicates that social media is frequently used by mothers for interpersonal support (Duggan et al., 2015), therefore it was critical to determine how these types of applications might impact infant language development. Mothers with 6 to 9 month-old infants used their smartphones about the same as mothers with 12 to 15 month-old infants. Maternal smartphone usage did not relate to the amount of language when analyzed across the whole 4 hours but correlated with less language heard by infants when examined at the 5-minute level in the 12 to 15 month age group. Finally, maternal social media use was not associated with decreases in the language heard by infants in the study. These results suggest that social media specific smartphone usage had minimal impact on the amount of language infants heard. While maternal smartphone usage impacted the amount of language heard by infants at the 5-minute level, age was the most important determinant in how often a mother spoke to her infant.