The collection, edited by MIT's Henry Jenkins, features various scholars discussing cultural themes about childhood and what it means to be a child.
In a retrospective study, written by University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management Chair of Marketing, Deborah Roedder John looks at 25 years of research and focuses her discussion on, "children's knowledge of products, brands, advertising, shopping, pricing, decision-making strategies, parental influence strategies, and consumption motives and values".
[7] Children's studies relating to the media use and consumption, access and literacy, content and exposure are all themes found within the body of research concerning the habits of young people.
[9][10][11] Other scholars, Wartella, Huston, Rideout, and Robb (2009), also call for more research specifically examining variances in content to assess quality versus quantity of consumption across media formats.
[14] For example, Sonia Livingstone, a professor of Social Psychology and head of the Department of Media and Communications at London School of Economics, and her collaborator have long argued that screen formats are becoming increasingly critical to education, work and leisure and even forms of interaction and engagement.
[16] Despite the proliferation of new media for personal use, those children that reported they used the internet on a typical day at their schools has remained consistent at 19% in 2004 and 20% in 2009.
The Kaiser Family Foundation study that spans 10 years (1999-2009) highlights several areas in which media access has branched into new platforms including: the increase of high-speed home Internet access, the crossing over of television content available online, and the expansion of new applications such as social networking and YouTube.
[11] The same Kaiser study from 2010 highlights computer and internet access of children based on ethnicity and level of parents' education.
Common Sense Media conducted a 2012 study that specifically examined what they defined as children's entertainment media, which consisted of "TV shows, music, video games, texting, iPods, cell phone games, social networking sites, apps, computer programs, online videos, and websites used for fun".
[20] Easily accessible at home, TV's incorporation of sound and digital images make for an entertaining medium that has both informational and social values that other new media have not yet tapped.
[27] In 2010, Rideout, Foehr, and Roberts found substantial differences in children that are heavy compared to light media users in numerous socioemotional areas of life.
[28] Electronic and digital media especially are increasingly being studied for their influential role in community, cultural, and societal shaping.
[11] In a study from scholars at Stanford Graduate School of Education, Professor of Learning Sciences and Education, Roy Pea and his team conducted an online survey of 3,461 girls ages 8–12 to study relationships between the young girls’ social well-being, media use, and face-to-face communication.
According to the Stanford researchers, levels of media use that center around interpersonal interaction (e.g., phone, online communication) were found to be positively associated with negative social well-being.
Through the years nationwide, over 2,000 youth, ages 8 to 18, have participated to track changes through developing stages of childhood and adolescents.
[35] Authors also investigated the media environment of young people, as well as usage patterns over the years and across different age groups.
While studies have shown that media can be positive for development and provide information about safe healthy practices that can foster social connectedness, some scholars continue to express concerns regarding potential negative effects of media's outcomes such as: aggression, sexual behavior, substance use, disordered eating, and academic difficulties.
[10] Other scholars have contended, however, that these fears are unfounded or at least exaggerated, noting that it was difficult to separate careful science from moral crusading.
[38] According to the City College of New York web-site the discipline prepares for jobs in: Rutgers University features a similar program, the Department of Childhood Studies, which focuses on issues, concepts and debates related to childhood in a "multidisciplinary approach" informed by both humanistic and social science perspectives.
The centre also "has a number of international partners from around the globe, creating opportunities for collaborative research on theoretical and substantive issues".