Emma,+age+4



At four years old, Emma’s technology usage and knowlegde completely astounded me. She was familiar with the internet, television, and the iPhone. She had a hard time navigating the iCarly website and was unsure what to do or click on, so assisted her in navigating it. She was very enthralled with the colors of the website. Emma is an avid YouTube watcher and can navigate the site well. Her favorite YouTube video is “Charlie Bit My Finger.” However, when she took control of her iPhone, there was no stopping her. Emma knew the iPhone inside and out. She was familiar with all the apps and knew how to navigate the iPhone better than many people I know. Her favorite app was this graphic design one which she could take pictures on her phone, change colors and modify the image. I do not know the first thing about working the iPhone, and this four year old could do it perfectly. Emma also watches some TV, although she is not allowed to use two pieces of technology at the same time. She like Zoey 101, Nick Jr., and sometimes watches iCarly. ---Stacey Rand
 * Media and Technology Habits**

She’s’ four and looks up to her older sister for everything. When we interviewed her alone, she was very talkative and loved describing certain episodes of shows she thought were funny. She was very engaged in the questions we asked her and her responses were well composed. We asked Emma lots of questions about her favorite television shows and who she watches them with. Emma said she loves Nick Jr. and she made it clear that she watches more of Nick Jr. because she is younger than her older brother and sister who watch more regular Nickelodeon. Her favorite shows are SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer. She also likes going on the internet to play games and watch YouTube videos. When we allowed Emma to explore the iCarly website herself, at first she was confused on how to work the mouse. She kept right clicking on things causing a toolbar to pop open and you could tell she was getting nervous. After we gave her more direction as of what to do and click on she then got used to it and was able to navigate better throughout the website. Also at one point she was trying to view a video and there is no sound on these computers, so she looks around and says “Oh I know, this might be why the sound isn’t working” and pointed to the volume control. Unfortunately this didn’t fix it because there is no sound at all hooked up, but it was interesting to see her knowledge of the computer. Emma gave us a lot of insight as to how a four year old thinks and feels about media and technology. She was very entertaining to interview because she was so full of energy and was excited to participate. We decided to start off with questions strictly about television and then we sort of branched off into other things. When interviewing a four year old it’s hard to keep them entertained so we had to stray a little and talk about her favorite color and non-media related topics. Emma loved to describe specific episodes she watched, and would often burst into laughter during her description. A positive part of the interview was that Emma has watched multiple episodes of iCarly and was very familiar with the show and its characters. She was able to describe a whole episode and give her opinion about each character. She said that Carly was her favorite because she sticks up to the “evil” character, Nevel. The fact that Emma was able to distinguish Nevel as evil was a breakthrough moment in our interview with her. -Anjelica Orloff
 * Media Knowledge at an Early Age**


 * The Interviewing Process**

I had the opportunity to interview Emma, who is four years old, and I would say that she had the personality of a //typical// four year old. She had a very hard time sitting still in her seat and when I or my group members would ask her a question, she would answer quickly and then start talking about something else. At four, she really couldn’t formulate her ideas like an adult would, so it was a bit difficult to understand what she was saying at times. However, she was very animated and seemed to like talking to us and answering our questions. Through this process, I have come to understand how much of a difference there is between interviewing children and interviewing adults. The process seemed to go a lot smoother when we were interviewing the adults as opposed to the children. When I interviewed Emma, she would give very short answers and there were quite a few times where she just got completely off topic. I feel like adults are more adept at formulating good strong answers to questions, while children don’t really have the ability to do that yet. It was easier to get answers out of Emma when we would ask very simple questions or respond to something she had said. If we asked her a more difficult question, she would answer with “I don’t know”. Also, it was more difficult to keep Emma on task because she was more interested in playing with the //iCarly// website on the computer. I think that we would have gotten better answers out of her if she didn’t have the website open, grabbing most of her attention. -Caitlin Gainsborg