Abstract
The concept of the postdigital child suggests a nuanced understanding of children’s engagement with technology. This entry explores the characteristics, challenges, and educational implications associated with postdigital childhoods. Postdigital children exhibit novel forms of creativity, digital expression, and autonomous learning preferences, yet face concerns regarding inequality, the commodification of education, and ethical implications such as data privacy. In education, shifts in teaching and learning practices are driven by postdigital fluency, offering personalized experiences but raising critiques about aligning with capitalist ideologies. Postdigital play in early childhood settings prompts re-evaluations, highlighting the intertwined nature of digital and non-digital spaces. Future research areas include exploring intersections with the Anthropocene, understanding cognitive impacts through neuroscience, and addressing social-emotional learning challenges. Researchers, educators, and policymakers must increasingly navigate these complexities to support and envision new models of postdigital developmentalism for future childhoods.
References
Apperley, T., Jayemanne, D., & Nansen, B. (2016). Postdigital literacies: Materiality, mobility and the aesthetics of recruitment. In B. Parry, C. Burnett, & G. Merchant (Eds.), Literacy, media, technology: Past, present and future (pp. 203–218). London: Bloomsbury.
Arnott, L. (2016). An ecological exploration of young children’s digital play: Framing children’s social experiences with technologies in early childhood. Early Years (London, England), 36(3), 271–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2016.1181049.
Arnott, L., Palaiologou, I., & Gray, C. (2019). Digital and multimodal childhoods: Exploration of spaces and places from pedagogy and practice. Global Studies of Childhood, 9(4), 271–274. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043610619885464.
Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(5), 775–786. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x.
Berkhout, F., & Hertin, J. (2004). De-materialising and re-materialising: Digital technologies and the environment. Futures : The Journal of Policy, Planning and Futures Studies, 36(8), 903–920. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2004.01.003.
Bhatt, I. (2023). Postdigital Literacies. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_15-1.
Biesta, G. (2015). What is education for?: On good education, teacher judgement, and educational professionalism. European Journal of Education, 50(1), 75-87. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12109.
Bird, J. (2019). “You need a phone and camera in your bag before you go out!”: Children’s play with imaginative technologies. British Journal of Educational Technology, 51(1), 166–176. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12791.
Bird, J., & Edwards, S. (2015). Children learning to use technologies through play: A digital play framework. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(6), 1149–1160. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12191.
Blair, R., Millard, D., & Woollard, J. (2017). Perceptions of school children of using social media for learning. International Journal on e-Learning, 16(2), 105-127.
Bozkurt, A. (2023). Postdigital Educational Technology. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_57-1.
Cipollone, M., Schifter, C. C., & Moffat, R. A. (2014). Minecraft as a creative tool: A case study. International Journal of Game-Based Learning, 4(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijgbl.2014040101.
Dezuanni, M. (2019). Minecraft ‘worldness’ in family life: Children’s digital play and socio-material literacy practices. In O. Erstad, R. Flewitt, B. Kümmerling-Meibauer, & Í. Susana Pereira (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of digital literacies in early childhood (pp. 366–376). Abingdon: Routledge.
DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W. R., & Robinson, J. P. (2001). Social implications of the internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1), 307–336. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.307.
Edwards, S. (2013). Digital play in the early years: A contextual response to the problem of integrating technologies and play-based pedagogies in the early childhood curriculum. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 21(2), 199-212. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2013.789190.
Edwards, S. (2016). New concepts of play and the problem of technology, digital media and popular-culture integration with play-based learning in early childhood education. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 25(4), 513–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2015.1108929.
Edwards, S. (2021). Digital play and technical code: What new knowledge formations are possible? Learning, Media and Technology, 46(3), 306-319. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2021.1890612.
Ellison, T. L., & Evans, J. N. (2016). Minecraft, teachers, parents, and learning: What they need to know and understand. The School Community Journal, 26(2), 25.
Erstad, O., & Gillen, J. (2020). Theorizing digital literacy practices in early childhood. In O. Erstad, R. Flewitt, B. Kümmerling-Meibauer, & Í. S. Pereira (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Digital Literacies in Early Childhood. London: Routledge.
Fitzpatrick, C., Harvey, E., Cristini, E., Laurent, A., Lemelin, J., & Garon-Carrier, G. (2022). Is the association between early childhood screen media use and effortful control bidirectional? A prospective study during the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 918834. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918834.
Fleer, M. (2016). Theorising digital play: A cultural-historical conceptualisation of children’s engagement in imaginary digital situations. International Research in Early Childhood Education, 7(2), 75–90.
Fleer, M. (2017). Digital role-play: The changing conditions of children’s play in preschool settings. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 24(1), 3-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2016.1247456.
Flewitt, R., & Clark, A. (2020). Porous boundaries: Reconceptualising the home literacy environment as a digitally networked space for 0–3 year olds. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 20(3), 447-471. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420938116.
Ford, D. R. (2023). Postdigital Time. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_21-2.
Gee, J. P. (2008). Video games and embodiment. Games and Culture, 3(3–4), 253–263. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412008317309.
Gillen, J., & Kucirkova, N. (2018). Percolating spaces: Creative ways of using digital technologies to connect young children’s school and home lives. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(5), 834-846. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12666.
Giroux, H. A. (2008). Education and the crisis of youth: Schooling and the promise of democracy. The Educational Forum, 73(1), 8–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131720802539523.
Godfrey, R. V. (2016). Digital citizenship: Paving the way for family and consumer sciences. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 108(2), 18-22. https://doi.org/10.14307/JFCS108.2.18.
Haddock, A., Ward, N., Yu, R., & O’Dea, N. (2022). Positive effects of digital technology use by adolescents: A sco** review of the literature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(21), 14009. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192114009.
Hartas, D. (2020). Young people’s play, wellbeing and learning: Psycho-social and virtual geographies in digital play. Cham: Palgrave Pivot. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60001-3.
Harwood, D., & Collier, D. R. (2019). Talk into my GoPro, I’m making a movie!: Using digital ethnographic methods to explore children’s sociomaterial experiences in the woods. In N. Kucirkova, J. Rowsell, & G. Falloon (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of learning with technology in early childhood (1st ed., pp. 49–61). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315143040-4e.
Hayes, S. (2023). Postdigital Positionality. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_35-1.
Hood, N., & Tesar, M. (2019). Postdigital childhoods in the time of Anthropocene. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(2), 307-310. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00062-x.
Hurley, Z. (2023). Postdigital Feminism(s). In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_42-1.
Jandrić, P., & Ford, D. R. (Eds.). (2022). Postdigital Ecopedagogies: Genealogies, Contradictions, and Possible Futures. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97262-2.
Jandrić, P., & Knox, J. (2022). The Postdigital Turn: Philosophy, Education, Research. Policy Futures in Education, 20(7), 780-795. https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103211062713.
Jandrić, P., Knox, J., Besley, T., Ryberg, T., Suoranta, J., & Hayes, S. (2018). Postdigital Science and Education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(10), 893-899. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1454000.
Lehrl, S., Linberg, A., Niklas, F., & Kuger, S. (2021). The home learning environment in the digital age-associations between self-reported “analog” and “digital” home learning environment and children's socio-emotional and academic outcomes. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 592513. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.592513.
Li, Y., & Ranieri, M. (2013). Educational and social correlates of the digital divide for rural and urban children: A study on primary school students in a provincial city of China. Computers and Education, 60(1), 197-209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.08.001.
Livingstone, S., & Helsper, E. (2007a). Gradations in digital inclusion: Children, young people and the digital divide. New Media & Society, 9(4), 671-696. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444807080335.
Livingstone, S., & Helsper, E. J. (2007b). Taking risks when communicating on the internet: The role of offline social-psychological factors in young people's vulnerability to online risks. Information, Communication & Society, 10(5), 619-644. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691180701657998.
MacKenzie, A. (2023). Postdigital Epistemic Violence. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_7-1.
Manwell, L. A., Tadros, M., Ciccarelli, T. M., & Eikelboom, R. (2022). Digital dementia in the internet generation: Excessive screen time during brain development will increase the risk of alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in adulthood. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 21(1), 28. https://doi.org/10.31083/j.**2101028.
Marsh, J., Wood, E., Chesworth, L., Nisha, B., Nutbrown, B., & Olney, B. (2019). Makerspaces in early childhood education: Principles of pedagogy and practice. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 26(3), 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2019.1655651.
Mascheroni, G., & Holloway, D. (Eds.). (2019). The Internet of Toys: Practices, Affordances and the Political Economy of Children’s Smart Play. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10898-4.
Mikulan, P. (forthcoming). What do Holobionts and Quantic Points of View have to do with Disrupting Developmentalism? Nothing – Yet! Implications for a Speculative Ethics of Care. In A. Davies (Ed.), Disrupting Developmentalism. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press.
Misiaszek, G. W. (2023). Postdigital Freirean Ecopedagogies. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_11-1.
Montag, C., & Elhai, J. D. (2020). Discussing digital technology overuse in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: On the importance of considering affective neuroscience theory. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 12, 100313-100313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2020.100313.
Nansen, B. (2020). Young Children and Mobile Media: Producing Digital Dexterity. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49875-7.
Nansen, B., Nicoll, B., & Apperley, T. (2019). Postdigitality in children’s crossmedia play: A case study of Nintendo’s amiibo figurines. In G. Mascheroni & D. Holloway (Eds.), The Internet of Toys: Practices, Affordances and the Political Economy of Children’s Smart Play (pp. 89–108). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10898-4_5.
Palmer, S. (2015). Toxic childhood: How the modern world is damaging our children and what we can do about it. London: Orion Books.
Pettersen, K., Arnseth, H. C., & Silseth, K. (2022). Playing Minecraft: Young children’s postdigital play. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984221118977.
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9, 5, 1–6.
Prinstein, M. J., Nesi, J., & Telzer, E. H. (2020). Commentary: An updated agenda for the study of digital media use and adolescent development – future directions following Odgers & Jensen (2020). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 61(3), 349-352. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13219.
Rafalow, M. H., & Walter de Gruyter & Co. (2020). Digital divisions: How schools create inequality in the tech era (1st ed.). The University of Chicago Press.
Rapanta, C. (2023a). Postdigital Citizenship Education. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_40-1.
Rapanta, C. (2023b). Postdigital Citizenship. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_3-2.
Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship in schools: Nine elements all students should know. 3rd Ed. Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education.
Sánchez-López, I., Roig-Vila, R., & Pérez-Rodríguez, A. (2022). Metaverse and education: The pioneering case of Minecraft in immersive digital learning. El Profesional De La Informacion, 31(6). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2022.nov.10.
Selwyn, N. (2011). Schools and schooling in the digital age: A critical analysis. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203840795.
Selwyn, N. (2019). Should robots replace teachers?: AI and the future of education. Medford, MA: Polity Press.
Selwyn, N. (2021). Education and technology: Key issues and debates. London: Bloomsbury.
Srivastava, C., & Patkar, P. (2023). In H. Shah, & N. Gupta (Eds.), Digital technology and brain development. SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/09731342231178632erson.
Stephen, C., & Plowman, L. (2014). Digital play. The Sage handbook of play and learning in early childhood. Sage Publications Ltd.
Taylor, E. (2010). I spy with my little eye: The use of CCTV in schools and the impact on privacy. The Sociological Review, 58(3), 381-405. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2010.01930.x.
Taylor, E., & Rooney, T. (2017). Surveillance futures: Social and ethical implications of new technologies for children and young people. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315611402.
Toh, W., & Kirschner, D. (2020). Self-directed learning in video games, affordances and pedagogical implications for teaching and learning. Computers & Education, 154, 103912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2020.103912.
Vincze, A. (2020). Digital inequalities by gender and socio-economic status among Hungarian students based on PISA 2015. Belvedere Meridionale, 32(3), 86-102. https://doi.org/10.14232/belv.2020.3.7.
Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Webb, P. T. (2023). Postdigital Neoliberalism. In P. Jandrić (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_44-1.
Webb, P. T., & Mikulan, P. (2022). Decolonizing Racial Bioinformatics: Governing Education in Contagion and Dehiscence. In M. A. Peters, P. Jandrić, & S. Hayes (Eds.), Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies (pp. 255–276). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95006-4_14.
Zhao, L., Lu, Y., Huang, W., & Wang, Q. (2010). Internet inequality: The relationship between high school students’ internet use in different locations and their internet self-efficacy. Computers and Education, 55(4), 1405-1423. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.05.010.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mikulan, P. (2024). Postdigital Child. In: Jandrić, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_64-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_64-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35469-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35469-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education