Workshop Summary:

Digital media represent an influence in children’s lives that have effects on varying levels of cognition, learning, and social interaction, and which, to an increasing degree, crosscuts socioeconomic strata. This workshop will build on the success of our 2017 CDS workshop on Digital Media & Cognitive Development, which had 47 registrants (19 faculty, 10 postdoc, 18 graduate students). The proposed workshop Digital Media and Cognitive Development comes at a critical time as researchers grapple with the theoretical and practical implications of digital media for cognitive development.

This workshop will convene top scholars in cognitive development broadly and those who study the impact of digital media specifically. Additionally, this workshop will provide infrastructure for mentoring early career scholars who are interested in digital media and cognitive development.

The current research landscape will be weighed in three panels of speakers: Direct and Indirect Learning from Digital Media (Panel 1), Digital Media and Social Cognition (Panel 2), and Translating Developmental Science on Digital Media (Panel 3).

In addition, workshop attendees will have the opportunity to share their own research during through poster presentations and poster teaser talks that is designed to connect junior scholars, emerging scholars, and top researchers in one-on-one discussions. As in 2017, we will also match junior scholars with established researchers for informal mentoring. Poster & mentoring applications open on Monday, September 2 and close on Friday, October 4.

Funding:

The costs of the pre-conference workshop are offset by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to Drs. Kirkorian & Richert.