Play-O-Rama : Digital Well-being Tool for your Children
This is third in my series of blogs in domain of Digital Well-being. I introduce the systemic solution I have designed for parents to manage the time spent by their technology with children and support them to engage in meaningful activities which lead to their overall well-being. If you are new to this series, you can go through my first blog here.
If you know a preschooler or their parents, do pass the information you gain through this blog. I would also be grateful if you could connect me with those parents or nearby nursery schools to grow awareness of the issue.
The habits developed by children during their formative years have implications on their later life. Simple habit of self-control taught at early age has shown to have positive impact on their overall lifestyle in later stages. Teaching such habits require time and patience by the parents and right environment for children to learn, and when it comes to teaching self-control of time spent with mobile phone, the methods currently used are only brute force. The simple habit of hand washing is learnt by children through repetition and following their parent’s lead, but there aren’t many strategies when it comes to control of screen time.
I introduce Play-O-Rama as a systemic solution for parents which supports them to teach their children the life-long habit of managing their screen time and thus ensures digital well-being of child . The solution space consists of Educational Material currently being implemented in Nursery Schools and at home, containing Nursery Rhymes, Activity Box and a Mobile Application. This also comes along with a guide for parents on how to successfully create an environment for children to build this skill.
Nursery Rhymes
Nursery rhymes have been effective learning channels for teaching children, but there aren’t any currently existing which address the growing issue of smartphone overuse by children. With the magic of song and music, I worked on designing three nursery rhymes which teachers can teach at nursery school and parents can also reinforce at home, building a positive environment around kids to learn
Words for the rhymes and visuals were finalized in consultation with primary teachers. A book of such rhymes is current work in progress
Activity Box
Nothing contributes better to learning than a hands on play. An activity box was designed to engage the children such that parents can also have their personal time. A set of cards to guide activity play were also designed
During the testing phase of the activity box, it was observed that during the course of activity when children were provided with an option to play with mobile phone, they chose to continue playing with activity box.
Mobile Application
The issue discovered during research phase of project was that the children were engrossed in phone because of no breaks in between simultaneous content viewing, and thus it was important to design digital content consumption strategy such that children take breaks in between rather than viewing for continuous periods, giving parents an opportunity window to engage them in some other activity and help them build the skill of self control.
The contents have been not disclosed since it is currently under development and funding opportunity
The system of solutions is currently being tested out with parents. The solution is being iterated and plan is to reach out to more parents and schools to create awareness about the issue and introduce the solution. Feel free to drop in your feedback in the comments section below or mail me at purvish.shah@iitg.ac.in. I would be grateful if you could connect me with parents in need of such a solution.
I would like to thank my guide Prof. Pankaj Upadhyay, Department of Design, IIT Guwahati for guiding me in the project. I am also grateful to Tristan Harris, Jean Twenge and Nir Eyal for their contribution in this domain which helped me understand better.
