Digital technology has been a part of our lives since the beginning of the 21st century. Children are daily surrounded with smart phones, computers and other contemporary devices, which are necessary for the integration of an individual into society. Early childhood years are crucial for the development of digital competences and a balanced attitude towards the digital world, which on the one hand increases learning opportunities or on the other hand poses potential risk. Technology can have both positive and negative impact on a child’s development. The impact depends primarily on type of content children watch or type of games they play, whether the content is suitable for their developmental stage and to what extent they are exposed to digital technology. Parents also play an important role in this, as the impacts differ significantly depending on whether parents are present when the child uses digital technology or not. The main task of parents is to teach their children how to use digital devices responsibly and critically, and this is influenced by their attitudes towards the use of digital technology in preschool children. Attitudes are permanent mental, emotional, action and value attitudes in relation to various persons, objects, phenomena, beings and events. People differ in their views, as we can have different views on the same things. In the empirical part of the thesis, I was interested in the extent and purpose preschool children use digital technology. I investigated what content they watch and what digital skills children have developed. I checked the attitudes of parents towards the use of digital technology by preschool children and the relationship between parents' education and the frequency of use of digital technology by children. 166 randomly selected parents of preschool children in Slovenia were included in the research, who filled out a questionnaire designed for the purposes of this research. The results of the research showed that the time spent using digital technology increases with the age of children. We found that preschool children most often use digital technology for the purpose of entertainment, for instance to watch cartoons, videos, photos and play games. From the content they can choose on different devices, children most often watch cartoons for children. The results show that children are already quite digitally skilled in the preschool period. Most often, they take part in a video call with familiar people, talk on the phone or turn on the TV independently. The results show that preschool children whose parents have more positive attitudes towards the use of digital technology (they agree more with a certain point of view regarding the use of digital technology) spend more time using digital devices. I learnt that children of parents with different educational levels use digital technology to a similar extent. The time spent using digital technology among children does not significantly differ statistically according to the urban or rural environment of residence. As part of the thesis, I also designed a leaflet with which we want to raise awareness among parents about the aspects of use and the rules for using digital technology with preschool children.
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