Young people will find their digital bubbles: How can we

support them?Kevin Durkin

digitalbubbles.org.uk

Structure of talk

• Definition

• Bubbles

• Bubbles

• Bubbles

ASDTD

ADHD SLI

Digital media

• any media that are encoded in a machine-readable format

• digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on computers

• (Wikipedia)

Bubble1.: a thin sphere of liquid enclosing air or another gas "we'd shake up a piece of soap in a tin of warm water and blow bubbles"

2.: a good or fortunate situation that is isolated from reality or unlikely to last "we both lived in a bubble, the kind provided by occupying a privileged pied-à-terre in Greenwich Village" •(Google dictionary)

Digital bubble(s)

a good or fortunate situation

involving diverse forms of engagement with new technologies

isolated from reality and unlikely to last?

Digital bubble(s)

a good or fortunate situation

involving diverse forms of engagement with new technologies

critics isolated from reality and unlikely to last?

Play is good

• Most developmental psychologists, educational psychologists, teachers and many parents agree that play is a positive and natural component of healthy child development

• This includes play with and in bubbles (including digital bubbles)

The digital bubbles panic

• The fear is often voiced that digital bubbles will:

• isolate kids, maybe everyone• rot young brains• cause autism• cause ADHD• cause communication impairments

The digital bubbles panic

• The main sources of the digital bubbles panic are the mass media (especially, the press)

Neuroscientist quoted in the press

‘My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.’

'It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations’

Throw in circumstantial evidence that links a sharp rise in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the associated three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions over the past ten years with the boom in computer games and you have an immensely worrying scenario.

(Greenfield, 2014, Mail Online)_

The evidence:

Lady Greenfield told the Lords a teacher of 30 years had told her she had noticed a sharp decline in the ability of her pupils to understand others.

"If you play computer games to the exclusion of other things this will create a new environment that will have new effects ... every hour you spend in front of a screen is an hour not spent climbing a tree or giving someone a hug."

(Greenfield, The Telegraph, 2011)

"Creativity, imagination, self-esteem and even our basic ability to process information could be sacrificed at the virtual altar of what is known as "hyperconnectivity",

(BBC, 2013)

Are self-esteem, cognition, hugs and tree climbing sacrificed by digital bubbling?

• 1000+ US 16-year-olds

• Tested as part of longitudinal Michigan Study of Adolescent Transitions

• Measured on computer game play and miscellaneous aspects of social adjustment, wellbeing, educational performance

• Durkin and Barber (2002)

Self esteem

Self concept: Intelligence

Self concept: Computer skills

GPA

Family closeness

Activities/clubs involvement

• Never-players obtained most favourable scores on

none of the measures

• Not claiming that game play CAUSED positive outcomes

Game play is one interesting and challenging digital bubble that well adjusted young people may elect to immerse themselves in …… for part of their time

• What digital bubbles do young people with developmental disorders engage in?

• Do their digital bubbles differ?

• Should we stop them?

• Or support them?

(Interviewer) Do you see a link between computer games and the rise in conditions such as autism?

When we play computer games, we are all autistic.

(Greenfield, New Statesman, 2009)

Are we all autistic when we play videogames

or enter other digital bubbles?

• No

• Only people with autism are autistic when playing videogames

Children with ASD, ADHD and TD play VGs in different ways

• Study of mouse clicking in VGs• Children with ASD tended to be more cautious

in initiating moves, more likely to inhibit prepotent responses, more likely to repeat moves

• Children with ADHD less likely to inhibit responses

• (Veenstra et al., 2012)

Adolescents with ASD use everyday media in different ways

• Primary uses of mobiles

• For TD adolescents:• * to call my friends

• For AS adolescents:• * to play games

• (Durkin et al., 2010)

Children with ADHD sometimes perform better within digital bubbles• Children with ADHD have problems with:

• Inhibiting behaviours• Interrupting their ongoing behaviour to change course when needed• Dealing with distractions

A comparison of ADHD children in the ‘real world’ versus the digital world

• Participants:

• Boys 6 to 12 years• 57 with ADHD• 57 typically developing (TD)• Matched on age and IQ

• (Lawrence et al., 2002, 2004)

Method

• Participants visited the Perth Zoo

Method

• Instructed to follow two routes:

• A simple route (short, past trees)

• A complex route (longer, past exciting displays – Reptile House, Penguins, Crocodile House)

• On a separate occasion, participants played two videogames

• A simple game: Point Blank (shooting)

• A complex game: Crash Bandicoot

Measures• ZOO• Behavioural inhibition (deviations from instructed

route)• Motor control (time to complete course)

• VIDEOGAMES• N of correct shots fired (Point Blank)• Behavioural inhibition (Crash Bandicoot)• - pauses• - motor control, working memory

Results

• ZOO: Behavioural inhibition

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

Simple Complex

ADHD

Typical

Deviations frominstructed route

Results

• VIDEOGAMES

• Point Blank:

• No difference in mean % of correct shots

• 64% ADHD• 66% Typical

Results

• VIDEOGAMES

• Crash Bandicoot:

• No difference on behavioural inhibition

• ADHD group slightly poorer on Motor Control and Working Memory

Implications

• In the ‘real’ world, children with ADHD have problems with:

• Inhibiting behaviours• Interrupting their ongoing behaviour to

change course when needed• Dealing with distractions

• In the video game world, children with ADHD can inhibit behaviours, providing the game is not too complex (distracting)

• Video games are not a cure for ADHD• But they may provide a context for helping these

children to develop skills

Specific Language Impairment

• Difficulties in expressive/ receptive language

• - in the context of IQ in normal range and no hearing impairment

•

Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

• Approximately 7% of children present with SLI at school entry (Tomblin et al., 1997)

• One of the most common childhood

impairments, yet markedly under-represented in research into neurodevelopmental disorders (Bishop, 2010)

Young people with SLI at risk of poorer educational, behavioural and social outcomes

Interpersonal communication within digital bubbles

• Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) reduces the pressures of face-to-face interaction and the threat of negative evaluation

• On this basis, adolescents with SLI could be expected to be motivated to use home computers for interpersonal purposes

• Compared the uses of home computers by adolescents with and without SLI

• Participants completed questionnaires and diaries about their uses of new media

• Measured frequency of use and perceived ease of use with respect to both interpersonal and educational purposes

• (Durkin, Conti-Ramsden et al., 2009)

• Access to home computers was essentially identical between groups

• Both groups showed preference for non-educational uses of home computers

• Interpersonal computer use very similar across groups

• Virtually all adolescents with SLI regularly engaged in interpersonal uses of new media

• Nonetheless, use was somewhat restricted for adolescents with SLI …

0102030405060708090100

Email MSN Buy Mus Games

TD

SLI

Buy = Purchase items via webMus = Download musicGames = Play games (offline)

**

**

**

*

Uses of home computer for non-educational purposes

*

** = p <.001* = p <.05

SLI, language and computer use

• Adolescents with SLI group scored lower on a measure of perceived ease of use of computers

• Participants with SLI reported:• - information provided was too technical• - involved the use of too much text• - was difficult to understand• - hard to read, write and spell when using the

applications

SLI, language and computer use

• Conti-Ramsden, Durkin and Walker (2010): adolescents with SLI reported higher levels of computer anxiety than did typically developing peers

• A significantly larger proportion of adolescents with SLI did not use educational applications in a typical week (nearly one third for SLI versus only 8% for TD)

Adolescents with SLI used a number of online and offline educational applications less often than did TD youth

(e.g., downloading educational materials, online libraries)

Participants

• 49 16/17 year olds with SLI (male = 36, 73%) • 56 16/ 17 year olds with TD (male = 36, 64%)• (from the Manchester Language Study)

• Groups matched for maternal education level, and household income band

Results

• Mean educational progress at 19 years:

• TD = 5.6, SD = 1.0• SLI = 2.4, SD = 1.9

• p<.001, d = 2.11

Results

• Frequency of leisure uses was not a significant predictor of exams at 17 or educational progress at 19 for either group

• Frequency of educational uses did predict exam scores at 17 years (SLI and TD) and level of educational progress at 19 years (SLI only)

Why?

Persistence with challenging tasks = hard work

Working with educational computer applicationslikely to be associated with readiness to study, per se

Transferable skills? [Leisure, not sure, Education, yes]

Conclusions

• Digital bubbles are unstoppable• Keep calm and do not fear for hugs or brains• Children’s characteristics and needs influence

how they use digital bubbles• What looks playful may serve important

purposes for the developing individual(s) concerned

• Much remains to be done to ensure they have opportunities to find the best bubbles

How can we help childrenwith different conditions to get the best out of their digital bubbles?

How can we best assess quality and consequences of particular bubbles?

What, if anything, transfers?

References• Conti-Ramsden, G., Durkin, K., & Walker, A. J. (2010). Computer anxiety: A comparison of adolescents with

and without a history of specific language impairment (SLI). Computers & Education, 54, 136-145. • Durkin, K. (2010). Videogames and young people with developmental disorders. Review of General

Psychology, 14, 122 – 140.• Durkin, K., & Barber, B. (2002). Not so doomed: Computer game play and positive adolescent

development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 23, 373- 392. • Durkin, K., Boyle, J., Hunter, S., & Conti-Ramsden, G. (2013). Videogames for children and adolescents

with Special Educational Needs. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 221, 79 – 89.• Durkin, K., & Conti-Ramsden, G. (2014). Turn off or tune in? What advice can SLTs, educational

psychologists and teachers provide about uses of new media and children with language impairments?. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 30, 187-205.

• Durkin, K., Conti-Ramsden, G., Walker, A., & Simkin, Z. (2009). Educational and interpersonal uses of home computers by adolescents with and without Specific Language Impairment (SLI). British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27, 197 – 217.

• Durkin, K., Whitehouse, A. J.O., Jaquet, E., Ziatas, K., & Walker, A. (2010). Cell phone use by adolescents with Asperger syndrome. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 4, 314–318.

• Lawrence, V., Houghton, S., Tannock, R., Douglas, G., Durkin, K., & Whiting, K. (2002). ADHD outside the laboratory: Boys' executive function performance on tasks in videogame play and on a visit to the zoo. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 30, 447- 462.

• Veenstra, B., van Geert, P. L. C., & van der Meulen, B. F. (2012). Distinguishing and improving mouse behavior with educational computer games in young children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder or Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: An executive function-based interpretation. Mind, Brain, and Education, 6, 27 – 40.

Acknowledgements• Parts of the research summarised here were supported by ESRC grant no. ES/I00064X/1 (Gina Conti-

Ramsden, Andrew Pickles, Kevin Durkin, Nicola Botting)