Media and children's social development

Children learn about the world and how to function in it from a variety of sources and in a variety of ways. In addition to the socialization agents, media is also now universally considered a significant agent of childhood socialization, due to both the amount of time children spend with screens and to the types of media content they consume. In the context of children's social development, scholars have identified two general categories of content that have the potential to either support or hinder children's growth: prosocial media content and antisocial media content. Though media may be able to help or hinder children's social development, an understanding of media's socializing role is incomplete without consideration of the social contexts within which children's media use occurs. The social context of children's media use seems to be a critical part of the process of media-supported social development.