How Infants Are Able To Use iPads – Study

Parents may not need to fret when their toddlers handle their iPads as research has shown that they have no problem using such devices.

The Daily Mail reports:

Researchers have analysed hundreds of videos of babies trying, and quickly mastering, technology.

They found half of toddlers can use an iPad when they are just one, with 90 per cent mastering the gadget by their second birthday. The researchers admit they were stunned by the results.

The team of University of Iowa researchers set out to study more than 200 YouTube videos. By age two, 90 percent of the children in the videos had a moderate ability to use a tablet,’ said Juan Pablo Hourcade, associate professor of computer science in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study.

Just over 50 percent of 12-to-17-month-old children in the videos had a moderate ability.’

Hundreds of YouTube videos showing babies trying, and quickly mastering the iPad were watched.

Their paper is published in the proceedings of the CHI 2015 conference, the most prestigious in the field of human-computer interaction.

In the paper they write that their goal was to provide a window into how these children are using tablets through an analysis of relevant YouTube videos.

What they found was information that supports opportunities for research and starting points for design. Hourcade and his colleagues defined ‘moderate ability’ as needing help from an adult to access apps, but being able to use them while displaying some difficulty with basic interactions.

He says that to his knowledge, other researchers have conducted surveys of the prevalence of tablet use by young children, however, the UI study is the first to study how infants and toddlers are actually using the devices.

Hourcade says he was inspired to use YouTube videos by another researcher who analyzed online videos of computer used by people with motor impairments.  He says YouTube enabled his group to conduct the research without having to ask infants and toddlers to use tablets, something that some pediatricians discourage.

On the other hand, we know that infants and toddlers are using iPads and other devices because we’ve seen the videos recorded by their parents, and surveys confirm it is happening.

It’s happened really quickly before we could get out and arrange for more conventional studies, he says.

One of the biggest differences we found is that when children turn one year old, they switch from using both hands and all their fingers to interact with the tablet to using an index finger which is what adults do, he says.

He says he hopes that the study and others that follow will influence the development of apps that encourage interactive education for infants and toddlers.

The apps he envisions might be similar to the social and interactive-like children’s programs currently found on public television.

We may be able to use research on what makes certain children’s educational television programs beneficial as a starting point and go on from there, he says.