Parent personality, child temperament, and digital media: Pathways to language development in early childhood

Over the past decade, children's digital media exposure has increased rapidly, raising concerns about its potential negative impact on language development. While broader family ecology (especially parents) and the context of how media is used are known to matter in shaping children's language development, the roles of parent personality and child temperament in shaping media consumption remain understudied. To address this gap, this study introduces a holistic model examining parent personality, child temperament, and media use as predictors of language development in 2-year-old children, both concurrently and longitudinally. In Study 1, 464 caregivers (n_female = 222) of 17- to 30-month-old monolingual English-speaking children (n_female = 323) were recruited via Cloud Research and Prolific. Caregivers were 76.94% White and had a median education of a 4-year college degree. The study assessed parent personality, child temperament, media use duration, motivations and contexts of media use, and child language outcomes. Study 2 measured a subset of these caregivers (n = 90) 1 year later. Results suggest parent conscientiousness directly impacts children's media use and indirectly impacts vocabulary. The impact of children's negative affect on vocabulary is mediated through their technology use. Educational motivations for using media and presence of joint social context did not moderate media's impact on vocabulary. However, duration of digital media use at 2 years predicted vocabulary 1 year later, regardless of parent personality or child temperament. This study emphasizes the importance of the broader family ecologies, including parent personality and child temperament, as well as longitudinal impacts of media use, calling for more nuanced, context-sensitive guidance over one-size-fits-all recommendations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).