# Growing up in a digital world: A synergistic approach to understanding media use in children ages 1-8 years

> **NIH NIH P01** · GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $103,806

## Abstract

Project summary
Progress in understanding the effects of media exposure on child outcomes has been limited by the lack of
large and representative longitudinal datasets, the difficulty of tracking quality of content in an ever-changing
media environment, and the lack of a mechanism to rapidly share and analyze results in a theoretically driven
manner. The overarching goal of this P01 proposal is to examine trajectories of media use - characterizing the
context, content, and problematic uses of media - in a diverse group of 1200 children aged 1 to 7 years and
examining temporal associations with emotion regulation and social competence using a cohort sequential
design. The admin core will collate and integrate the Comprehensive Assessment of Family Media Exposure
(CAFE) Toolkit data along with emotion regulation and social competence outcome data across the three
studies. The CAFE Toolkit measures household media use through a web-based questionnaire, time-use
diary, and passive-sensing app installed on family mobile devices (Barr et al., 2020; Radesky et al., 2020b).
The administrative core will manage the data integration of the three longitudinal studies across the entire age
range (1-3, 3-5, 5-7 year olds). Data collected from new cohorts will be compared to data collected before and
during the COVID pandemic by the same research groups using the same CAFE Toolkit to examine how
media exposure patterns varied as a function of the pandemic and how those experiences are related to socio-
emotional outcomes. The P01 will also develop methods to increase the efficiency of coding the quality of
media content, a bottleneck in the field. Finally, the data will be integrated, shared, visualized, and analyzed in
a shared analytic Research Hub.
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10532541
- **Project number:** 1P01HD109907-01
- **Recipient organization:** GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** RACHEL F. BARR
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $103,806
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-09 → 2025-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10532541

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10532541, Growing up in a digital world: A synergistic approach to understanding media use in children ages 1-8 years (1P01HD109907-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10532541. Licensed CC0.

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