Is Your Media Choice Sending the Right Message?
by Wendy Smolen View Bio
Wendy Smolen is a writer, editor and idea generator with a 20-year history in the toy and media industry. She is SVP of Sandbox Events and Publishing at PlayScience, an innovation and development company that partners with brands to create and launch new consumer experiences in play and learning. Wendy co-founded Sandbox Summit, an idea forum that explores the intersection of play, learning and technology. She has held senior positions at Parents and Nick Jr. Family Magazine and worked on concepts and strategies for companies including LEGO, HAPE, and A&E.
- A new study by PlayScience, just released at Sandbox Summit@MIT, shows that gender differences affect our media choices for our children and our expectations of what works when.
- Being conscious of your own biases will allow you to shift your perceptions and expand your children’s media choices.
- Consciously intersperse technology with non-screen time. Use stories or songs to soothe, instead of screens.
- Boys and girls play differently. But not all girls, nor all boys, play in the same ways. No matter what your child’s gender, give him or her a choice in how, as well as what, he/she wants to play. And stand up for your child’s choices with other kids and parents.
With an incredible array of children’s tech products available now, many parents look for tablets, e-readers, video games and smartphones to give their kids. But did you know that your technology choice may have a gender bias attached to it? Wendy Smolen, SVP at PlayScience, explores this thought-provoking new research finding.
As the mother of boy-girl twins (now young adults), the ways that parents, teachers, and toys consciously or unconsciously reinforce gender stereotypes fascinate me. It goes beyond buying pink blocks to entice girls to build or blue tablets to encourage boys to learn spelling. A new study by PlayScience, just released at Sandbox Summit@MIT, shows that gender differences affect our media choices for our children and our expectations of what works when. (Full disclosure: although I had early access to the study as the SVP of Sandbox Events, I was not involved in the process.)
The study explored parents’ perceptions of various play platforms, including kids’ tablets, regular tablets, e-readers, video games, smartphones, computers and television. Overall, it suggested that parents of kids ages 2-9 think of tablets (kids’ or regular) as the device of preference, as well as the most educational. Smartphones ranked at the bottom of the list, and were considered neither educational nor safe.
But here’s where it gets more interesting. Despite their iffy perceptions of smartphones, parents were three times more likely to give their sons a smartphone or video game device “because the boys preferred it.” They were almost twice as likely to buy their daughters a kid’s tablet because it was safe and easy to use. And the differences didn’t stop there: parents were more likely to use media to manage their sons during stressful periods as opposed to their daughters.
Does this mean that we, the parents and teachers, subconsciously think of technology as more “blue”? And if so, is it any wonder we worry about girls and STEM? Technology itself is gender-neutral, so why don’t we use it in the same ways for boys and girls?
“This should be a wake-up call to parents to be conscientious about how they make choices about technology with their kids,” suggests PlayScience CEO Dr. Alison Bryant. “We know as parents that children learn norms and values very early on. We need to be empowering both boys and girls with technology choices.”
“Does this mean that we, the parents and teachers, subconsciously think of technology as more “blue”? And if so, is it any wonder we worry about girls and STEM?”
Think about when and how you use media with your kids. And then think again before you pass the smartphone to the back seat. Here are some ways you can help break down the gender media walls:
- Examine your own platform preferences. Do you fall into the patterns found in this study? Being conscious of your own biases will allow you to shift your perceptions and expand your children’s media choices.
- Balance your children’s media diet. Consciously intersperse technology with non-screen time. Use stories or songs to soothe, instead of screens. The study found that television was the medium of choice for family time. Take advantage of it by watching shows together and talking about them.
- Respect your child’s play preferences. Boys and girls play differently. But not all girls, nor all boys, play in the same ways. No matter what your child’s gender, give him or her a choice in how, as well as what, he/she wants to play. And stand up for your child’s choices with other kids and parents.
- Challenge gender stereotypes with your kids. When your son tells you that he can’t play with those purple blocks because they are for girls, or your daughter tells you that a sports video game is for boys, don’t just tell them they can play it, but jump in and show them it’s OK by playing too.