영유아의 미디어 이용 적정화를 위한 정책 방안 연구

Abstract

As the age at which young children start to use media has decreased and media use has become more common, concerns are growing about the negative impact of media use on the development of young children. Meanwhile, media devices have become increasingly ubiquious, with uses extending from remote learning for early childhood education and childhood institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic to engagement with varied educatioinal content through media from infancy. These trends have led to a growing need for policies and measures to support young children in using media appropriately. This study is based on the view that the use of media in infancy and early childhood requires special attention from adults and an appropriate level of guidance. Therefore, through this study proposes policies to enable children at home and at childcare and educational institutions to use media at an appropriate level for their development. The study's methods included a fact-finding survey, Focus group interview, and policy seminar. The survey was conducted with 508 homeroom teachers from daycare centers and kindergartens and 1,500 parents raising children aged 0-6. The survey was conducted to understand the media use, guidance status, and policy needs in terms of childcare activities.

The main results of this study are as follows. First, the home ownership rate of smartphones (99.6%), TVs (94.3%), PCs (90.7%), and tablet PCs (74.4%) was found to be high. A high ownership rate of artificially intelligent speakers(46.9%) and game consoles(35.3%) was also found. Moreover, qualitative differences in media environments were detected. Unlike in the past, when young children's media use was solely focused on watching TV, it was found that especially in the case of infants and young children, caution is needed in the use of tablet PCs, which are rapidly increasing in household penetration. This is a result of rising concerns in studies of media use behavior focused on video watching that media dependence is highly likely to occur when infants or toddlers use a tablet PC with a similar portability to a smartphone but with a larger screen. Second, it was found that the media use habits of adults who should instruct children to use media at home were generally undesirable. Therefore, in order to form the proper media use habit of infants and young children, it seems that the correct media use of adults is necessary. Parents of infants and toddlers showed high rates of media use while eating, before going to bed, while driving, and while lying down, and used multiple media at the same time, indicating that adult media use habits are generally undesirable. Third, it was found that the use of smartphones or tablet PCs by infants and young children was often used as a means to secure time and convenience for adults. In addition, there were many cases in which young children were asked to use the media as a reward for doing something they were required to do(56.2%). Fourth, the management of media use of infants and young children at home was found to differ according to parents' educational background, household employment status, and child birth order. Infants and young children's media use was found to be more strictly controlled if their parents had a high educational background or were single-earners, or if they were the first child. This means that children of dual-income families or children of poorly educated parents are at high risk of being placed in a vulnerable media environment. Fifth, parents of infants and toddlers recognized the importance of media use for young children and tried to instil good media use habits in their children through various educational methods. However, parents of young children had rarely received any education on how to teach their children to use media properly, and the demand for such education was high. Sixth, 66.8% of infants and toddlers had increased their use of media devices since the COVID-19 pandemic had begun. This increase seemed to stem from increased play time and staving off boredom from staying at home due to school closures during the COVID-19 crisis. In addition, it seemed that the time for young children to use media had also increase, with early childhood education institutions conducting classes online during the pandemic. Seventh, daycare centers and kindergartens were found to be equipped with a wide variety of media devices and used them for classroom education and childcare activities. The media was found to be used more actively as the children's age increased, and the media use in regular classes was high. Eighth, among the types of media guidance provided by teachers when using media in early childhood education and childcare, "Limiting the media use time of young children within the recommended time for each age" was found to be the most frequent, with 73.7% of respondents answering "always" to that item. The teaching methods most frequently used by teachers were "use with teachers"(58.4%) and "talk about content with teachers"(47.1%). Ninth, teachers' awareness of the guidelines for guiding the use of media for young children was found to be very low. However, it was determined that if teachers who knew the guidelines followed them. Tenth, 70.3% of kindergarten and daycare teachers had experience in guiding young children to use media, and the teachers responded that education that they had received toward this purpose was helpful in guiding young children to use media. Eleventh, most teachers (96.3%) respondent that activities using media devices and contents were helpful for smooth education and childcare activities. Teachers also emphasized the tablet PC as a media device that was necessary for children to prepare for the "future environment". Twelfth, in terms of policies to optimize the use of media by young children, both parents and teachers answered that the "expansion of parental education to guide young children to use media properly" was the most necessary. Other policies that were highly rated by respondents included "strengthening public relations for the use of media for young children", "preparing measures to protect infants when creating content", "development and dissemination of age-specific content standards that users can refer to", "the restriction of advertisement and algorithm creation in children's apps and children's channels". In contrast, "preparing legal regulations for young children's media use (restrictions on usage time by age, sanctions for violations, etc.)" received a relatively low score by participants. Based on these results, this study offers two policy directions for appropriate children's media use. First, policy must resppond to the changing media environment for young children. Second, a media environment suitable for young children needs to be created. To this end, it is advised that media use guidance education be mandatory for parents of infants and young children using daycare facilities and educational institutions and that it be reinforced during health check-ups. Other suggested policies include continuing education for faculty, media use guidance as a required subject in early childhood teacher education, the development of media use guidelines for institutional and home childcare and educational activities, young children's media literacy reflecting curricular content, measures to improve the suitability of content for infants and young children, and support measures for vulnerable people in media environments.