The Media and Its Influence on Young Children

Children are exposed to media from day one. Even infants have a screen as their first baby sitter. How can we help young children in the media age to not have their autonomy, competence, problem solving capacity and overall cognitive and emotional well being compromised by being in front of screens? How can we as a society have productive dialogue about how violence in the media is a major force we must contend with in order to have healthy children?

Diane E. Levin, Ph.D. is Professor of Education at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts where she has been training early childhood professionals for over twenty-five years. She teaches courses on play, violence prevention, action research and a summer institute on “Media Madness”.

Levin’s has a B.S. in Child Development from Cornell University, an M.S.Ed. in Special Education from Wheelock College, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Sociology of Education and Child Development from Tufts University.

Levin’s newest book is Beyond Remote-Controlled Childhood: Teaching Young Children in the Media Age, released by the National Association for the Education of Young Children in 2013.