Browsing by Author "Altundal, Merve Nur"

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Citation - WoS: 12
Citation - Scopus: 16
Screen Media Exposure in Early Childhood and Its Relation To Children's Self-Regulation
(Wiley-Hindawi, 2022) Uzundag, Berna A.; Altundal, Merve Nur; Kessafoglu, Dilara
Self-regulation, the ability to control thoughts, emotions, and behavior for goal-directed activities, shows rapid development in infancy, toddlerhood, and preschool periods. Early self-regulatory skills predict later academic achievement and socioemotional adjustment. An increasing number of studies suggest that screen media use may have negative effects on children's developing self-regulatory skills. In this systematic review, we summarized and integrated the findings of the studies investigating the relationship between young children's screen media use and their self-regulation. We searched the ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science databases and identified 39 relevant articles with 45 studies. We found that screen time in infancy is negatively associated with self-regulation, but findings were more inconsistent for later ages suggesting that screen time does not adequately capture the extent of children's screen media use. The findings further indicated that background TV is negatively related to children's self-regulation, and watching fantastical content seems to have immediate negative effects on children's self-regulatory skills. We suggest that future studies should take the content and context of children's screen media use into account and also focus on parent- and home-related factors such as parental behaviors that foster the development of self-regulatory skills.
Küçük Çocukların Ekran Süresini Neler Belirler? Çocuk, Anne-Baba ve Ev Ortamı ile İlgili Yordayıcı Unsurlar
(Istanbul Univ, Fac Letters, Dept Psychology, 2025) Kessafoglu, Dilara; Altundal, Merve Nur; Koc, Nursena; Yildiz, Ezgi; Uzundag, Berna A.
Young children spend a significant part of their day in front of screens. Existing literature has shown associationsbetween children's screen time and various demographic, parent7related, and home7related factors. Most evidencecomes from high7income, developed countries with access to early childcare options. Investigating these factors inT & uuml;rkiye is crucial to compare findings across countries and identify new variables that might influence children'sscreen time. The first goal of this study was to examine child7related factors (e.g., age), parent7related factors (e.g.,parental stress), and home7related factors (e.g., background television) that may be associated with young children'sscreen time through an online survey. The second goal was to investigate the relationship between children's screentime and parents' perceived social support for the first time in the literature. A total of 647 parents with children younger than six (M = 41.5, SD = 17.9) months) participated. Results revealed that children's screen time was positivelycorrelated with parents' positive attitudes toward children's use of technology, parents' own screen time, child ageand distractibility as perceived by the parents, and the frequency of background television at home. Conversely,children's screen time was negatively related to parental education, household income, and parents' perceived social support. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that the frequency of background television at home, parents' positive attitudes toward children's use of technology, and child age emerged as the strongest predictors of children's screen time. This study is the first to propose and demonstrate the role of social support in determining children's screen time. Our findings may provide valuable insights for designing intervention strategies to reduce screen time among preschoolers.
Citation - WoS: 7
Citation - Scopus: 9
Relations Among Self-Reported Maternal Stress, Smartphone Use, and Mother-Child Interactions
(Springer, 2022) Uzundag, Berna A.; Oranc, Cansu; Kessafoglu, Dilara; Altundal, Merve Nur
A growing body of research indicates that parents' smartphone use is associated with interruptions in parent-child interactions and lower levels of parental responsiveness, which may adversely affect children's cognitive and socioemotional development. Studies suggest that parent-child interactions are more frequently interrupted by the use of screen-based devices if parents experience more stress specifically resulting from the demands of parenting, yet there are unexamined questions. Is parents' general daily stress related to technology-based interruptions in parent-child interactions? If so, does parents' use of mobile technology mediate this relationship? In this first study testing the mediating role of parental use of mobile phones between parental stress and technology-based interruptions in parent-child interactions, we collected data from 604 mothers of children younger than age six with an online survey. Results showed that controlling for child age, family income, mothers' employment status, household size, and maternal and paternal education, more stressed mothers reported using their mobile phones more problematically (e.g., not being able to resist checking messages), which was linked to more frequent perceived interruptions in the interactions with their children. Our results suggest that using mobile phones may serve as an outlet for stressed parents and is related to disruptions in the flow of parent-child interactions.