Digital Pacifiers: Developmental Trajectories of Media Emotion Regulation in Early Childhood

This study examined longitudinal changes in parents' use of media to regulate their children's emotions (media emotion regulation; MER) and predictors of these patterns. A total of 587 parent-child dyads participated in annual assessments over six years, beginning when children were 2.5 years old and continuing until age 7.5. Parents reported on MER, parent and child problematic media use, parent anxiety, and parent depression. Latent growth curve modeling was used to evaluate developmental trends of MER. Overall, MER declined consistently across early childhood and higher initial MER was associated with lower parental education, greater parental anxiety, and higher parent and child problematic media use. Additionally, both higher initial MER and slower declines predicted greater child and parent problematic media use at the final wave. These findings point to the developmental nature of media emotion regulation and suggest that relying on media early and consistently for emotion regulation may be linked to later problematic media use within families.