Research Themes

Digital Parenting & Family Media Ecology

Overview: Moving beyond global "screen time" totals, this line of research focuses on the dynamic, ecological context of household media use. Using daily diaries, experience sampling methodology (EMA), passive mobile sensing, and intensive longitudinal modeling, we explore how media functions as a real-time regulatory resource for parents and children.

CAFE Consortium: This is related to our collaboration with the Comprehensive Assessment of the Family Ecology (CAFE) Consortium. The CAFE Consortium formed in 2015 to develop new tools for measuring the content and context of child and family media use and examine associations with family wellbeing. Learn more about the CAFE Consortium and our measurement tools from the CAFE website.

Core Themes: Media motivations, family dynamics, family media ecology, social-emotional development, parental burnout and well-being, longitudinal and intensive longitudinal design and analysis

Click for Selected Publications

Kirkorian, H., Barr, R., Suh, B., Booth, M., Blanchard, M. A., Piper, D. J., Li, J., & Kerr, M. L. (2026). Temporal associations between parents’ daily reports of media motivations, infant affect, and parenting behavior. Developmental Psychology, 62(8), 1527-1540. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0002133

Suh, B., Barr, R., Kerr, M. L., Radesky, J., & Kirkorian, H. (2026). Development and validation of the parental Media Motivations (MEMO) scales for child and parent media use in the United States. Journal of Children and Media, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2025.2606976

Kerr, M. L., Barr, R., Booth, M., Blanchard, M. A., Suh, B., Piper, D. J., & Kirkorian, H. (2025). Bidirectional and temporal associations between parental burnout, parenting experiences, and family screen use. Translational Issues in Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000476

Barr, R., Kirkorian, H., Coyne, S., & Radesky, J. (2024). Early Childhood and the Digital World. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108885751

Barr, R. F., Kirkorian, H. L., Radesky, J., Coyne, S., Nichols, D., Blanchfield, O., et al. (2020). Beyond screen time: A synergistic approach to a more comprehensive assessment of family media exposure. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, e1283. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01283

Copyright Notice: The documents distributed here have been provided as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Single copies of any article or chapter can be downloaded and printed only for the reader's personal research and study. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted or redistributed in any electronic or printed form without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Child Development, Play, & Family Interactions in the Digital Age

Overview: Our research on media impact emphasizes the distinction between foreground television (i.e., programs to which children pay substantial attention, often child-directed) and background television (i.e., programs to which children pay little attention, often designed for older viewers) as they relate to young children's play and parent-child interactions. We have expanded this work to emerging technology as conversational AI agents and LLMs enter family spaces.

Core Themes: Child- vs. adult-directed television, toy play, parent-child interaction, parent mediation of emerging technology, observation of pseudo-naturalistic behavior

Click for Selected Publications

Selected publications:

Kirkorian, H., Kerr, M. L., Radesky, J., Barr, R., Booth, M., & Coyne, S. (submitted). Some days are harder: Daily fluctuations in toddler difficulty disengaging from media.

Kerr, M. L., Barr, R., Booth, M., Suh, B., Radesky, J., Coyne, S., & Kirkorian, H. (revision submitted). Between- and within-person longitudinal associations among parents’ and infants’ regulatory media use and emotion regulation.

Li, J., Zhang, S., Sullivan, D., Mutlu, B., Kirkorian, H., & Fawaz, K. (submitted). ``I feel like AI is just everywhere'': A longitudinal qualitative study on parents' perceptions, use, and mediation of GenAI.

Zhang, S., Li, J., Cagiltay, B., Kirkorian, H., Mutlu, B., & Fawaz, K. (2025). A qualitative exploration of parents and their children’s uses and gratifications of ChatGPT. Family Relations, 74, 1056-1071. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.13171

Kirkorian, H. L., Choi, K., & Anderson, D. R. (2019). American parents’ active involvement mediates the impact of background television on young children’s toy play. Journal of Children and Media, 19, 377-394. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2019.1635033

Kirkorian, H.L., Pempek, T.A., Murphy, L.A., Schmidt, M.E., & Anderson, D.R. (2009). The impact of background television on parent-child interaction. Child Development, 80, 1350-1359.

Selected conference presentations:

Yoo S. H., Pempek, T. A., & Kirkorian, H. L. (2017, April). The impact of background TV on toddlers’ play and attention: An examination of formal-feature density. Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.

Copyright Notice: The documents distributed here have been provided as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Single copies of any article or chapter can be downloaded and printed only for the reader's personal research and study. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted or redistributed in any electronic or printed form without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Cognitive Processing, Interactivity, & Learning from Screens

Overview: Our laboratory-based and semi-naturalistic studies isolate the specific design characteristics—such as touchscreen contingency, app interactivity, visual salience, and narrative coherence—that influence children’s selective attention, working memory, and learning transfer.

Core Themes: Touchscreen interactivity vs. video watching, video deficit and spatial memory, eye-tracking & attentional synchrony, educational app/eBook design features.

Click for Selected Publications

Kirkorian, H. L, & Simmering, V. (2023). Searching in the sand: Protracted video deficit in U.S. preschoolers' spatial recall using a continuous search space. Developmental Science, 26(4), e13376. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13376

Jing, M., Kadooka, K., Franchak, J., & Kirkorian, H. L. (2023). The effect of narrative coherence and visual salience on children’s and adults’ gaze while watching video. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 226, e105562. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105562

Choi, K., Kirkorian, H. L., & Pempek, T. A. (2017). Understanding the transfer deficit: Contextual mismatch, proactive interference, and working memory affect toddlers’ video-based transfer. Child Development. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12810.

Kirkorian, H. L., Choi, K., & Pempek, T. A. (2016). Toddlers' word learning from contingent and noncontingent video on touch screens. Child Development, 87, 405-413.

Choi, K., & Kirkorian, H. L. (2016). Touch or watch to learn? Toddlers' object retrieval using contingent and noncontingent video. Psychological Science.

Copyright Notice: The documents distributed here have been provided as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Single copies of any article or chapter can be downloaded and printed only for the reader's personal research and study. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted or redistributed in any electronic or printed form without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.