Using structured video chat to improve relationships between young children andremote grandparents. - Project Summary
During the COVID-19 pandemic many families are using video chat (e.g., Zoom) to maintain relationships
with distant relatives, including grandparents. While 67% of all grandparents reported liking the idea of video
chatting with their grandchildren, only 28% did so regularly. Increasing this percentage could significantly
improve grandparent-grandchild relationships because our Preliminary Study 1 showed that video chat
frequency is a strong predictor of grandparent’s ratings of closeness to their grandchild, even after controlling for
the geographic distance between them. The overall goal of our past, ongoing, and future research is to
understand the cognitive and social developmental challenges of video chat in order to support its use with
children. As the next step towards this goal, we propose to directly compare two approaches to instructing
grandparents on how to improve video chats between grandparents and young grandchildren (18-72 months of
age). Families will use video chat without the involvement of researchers during each video chat. Parent-child-
grandparent triads (n=180; the largest multi-session observational study of young children and video chat to
date) will record 10 video chats under one of three randomly-assigned conditions: structured play, structured
reading, or when given no instructions (control). Our overall hypothesis is that structured video chat will
increase children’s engagement and joint attention (primary outcome measures), as well as grandparents’
enjoyment of video chat and closeness with their grandchild (secondary outcome measures). We will use
detailed behavioral coding of the video recordings of these chats to objectively assess many of the outcome
measures. Our Preliminary Study 2 showed that structured video chat facilitates more positive social
interactions. The proposed work extends our preliminary work because it translates our laboratory methods
to a complementary ecologically-valid approach in families’ naturalistic environments. In Aim 1, we will determine
whether and for whom structured video chat improves child engagement and increases child-initiated screen-
based joint attention during video chats between grandparents and grandchildren. In Aim 2, we will determine
whether structured video chat increases grandparents’ enjoyment of the video chats and leads to greater feelings
of closeness to their grandchild. PI Myers and Co-I Strouse, who are both at R15-AREA-eligible institutions, are
well-qualified to complete the proposed work. Since 2017, they have published 9 papers on video chat, 12 papers
on reading, and collaboratively completed 3 preliminary studies and 2 papers. They have mentored 77
undergraduate students, many of whom were co-authors on conference posters or presentations (37; 22 as a
presenter) or journal articles (12). Importantly, 17 students came from underrepresented groups (BIPOC, first-
generation in college, LGBT). A total of 47 are pursuing or have completed graduate work in health-related
sciences, including 15 for doctoral degrees. The proposed work addresses a NICHD CDBB priority of advancing
our understanding of “Effects of Technology and Digital Media Use on Child and Adolescent Development.”
