Screen Media Use and Globalization in and around COVID-19

Our study, Screen Media Use and Globalization in and around COVID-19, is a survey study we conducted in spring 2019, then in the late spring and early summer of 2020, and then in summer 2021 with parents of children around the Twin Cities metro area. This study started as a screen media use study in 2019. Then, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic arose and so we added COVID-19-reltaed questions in 2020 to see how that impacted children’s media use. In 2020, Mr. Floyd was killed here in Minneapolis (and many parents talked about this event and race in the 2020 survey) so we added questions on race in the 2021 survey. As researchers, we think it’s really important to listen to everything you as parents tell us about real-world issues that are impacting families even if some of these issues arise during the course of the study, and that is why we made these real-time adjustments to add topics to our study from year to year. 

Publications

Eales, L., Ferguson, G. M., Gillespie, S., Smoyer, S., & Carlson, S. M. (2021).   Family resilience and psychological distress in the COVID-19 pandemic: A mixed methods study. Developmental Psychology, 57(10), 1563-1581. doi: 10.1037/dev0001221. (Click here for PDF).

Eales, L., Gillespie, S., Alstat, R. A., Ferguson, G. M., & Carlson, S. M. (2021). Children’s screen and problematic media use in the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Child Development, 92(5), e866-e882. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13652. (Click here for PDF).

Ferguson, G. M., Eales, L., Gillespie, S., & Leneman, K. (2021).  The Whiteness pandemic behind the racism pandemic: Familial Whiteness socialization in Minneapolis following #GeorgeFloyd’s murder. American Psychologist. doi: 10.1037/amp0000874. (Click here for PDF). *Recipient of the 2022 George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Article by the American Psychological Association Division 1 (Society For General Psychology). 

Resources for parents

Thank you again for your participation in our survey. We have compiled some free resources for you and your families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

All links are either to webpages or to documents that are downloadable to your computer.