Childhood is changing in the twenty-first century, largely as a result of the advances in technology. Children now have access to a wide array of media and electronic games, which some worry are stamping out the more traditional pursuits of playing outside or playing with non-electronic toys. It's difficult for parents and carers to steer a path through this rather confusing mixture of media hype and moral panics.

However, haven’t things always been this way? The adult world has often looked on the new practices of childhood with some anxiety, each generation thinking that the next one will be corrupted by new pastimes. For example, when talking movies were first introduced, pickets formed outside some cinemas in order to protest about the damaging influence these films would have on youngsters’ moral fibre!

In this article, I outline how young children’s practices are changing due to the advances in technology and share the findings of a survey undertaken with the children and parents who are participants in the ‘Child of our Time’ programme. This survey explored the extent to which media, new technologies and popular culture were a feature of the children’s daily lives. In this way, the discussion on changing childhoods will offer insights into the real-life experiences of a group of children, in order to address some of the issues and concerns often raised about this digital generation.

What do children like to do?
Popular culture and the media play a large part in young children’s lives. Popular culture includes those interests which are shared on a large scale, and includes film and television, toys, computer games and books. The interests of the children in the Child of our Time programme were very wide, but media, popular culture and new technologies played a central part, as Figure 1 indicates. This outlines the average time spent on various activities in one day.

Figure 1: Average time spent by each child on various activities in one day

Overall, Figure 1 would suggest that the children in this study enjoy a balanced social and cultural life, with traditional activities such as playing outside and playing with toys still being central to their daily activities. Indeed, children were asked to take photographs of their favourite things and, as Figure 2 suggests, a number of these activities have been enjoyed by past generations, such as dolls, teddies and scooters.

Figure 2: A selection of favourite toys

It is important to note that the survey was completed in the summer months and, therefore, the figure for amount of time spent playing outdoors may have been higher than if the survey had been completed at a different time of the year. This would certainly explain the differences with the data collected in the Open2.net online survey, which revealed that children stated that they liked playing with other children most of all, when in fact they spent the greatest proportion of their time with screen media. In the next section, I move on to look a little more closely at the role of television in children’s lives.