1. At various ages and stages of development, what are the strongest opportunities and vulnerabilities regarding children and adolescents’ uses of digital media? (Dr. Daphne Bavelier, University of Rochester, University of Geneva)
2. What is the unique experience of infants/toddlers with respect to media? Can they learn? If so, who can learn, and under what circumstances? How (if at all) can media be used to promote early learning during the first few years of life (i.e., before achievement gaps become well established)? (Dr. Heather Kirkorian, University of Wisconsin – Madison)
3. What, if any, impact does background media exposure (say TV or listening to games) have on concurrent play and social interactions? What about long-term cognitive, language, and social development? (Dr. Heather Kirkorian, University of Wisconsin – Madison)
4. Children and adolescents’ brains are in a constant state of d evelopment and change. Which new and ethical methodologies exist for determining how digital media influences the brain’s chemical and electrical functions differently from older forms of media, or other stimuli?(Dr. Robert Bilder, UCLA )
5. How might parents and early educators maximize the potential of digital media for early learning while minimizing potential negative consequences? (Dr. Rachel Barr, Georgetown College)
6. How do we get children to think about technology in larger terms, that include some concern about technology disconnects? (Dr. Jason Ohler, Digital Media Consultant)
7. How do we build an informed and engaged community – including scholars, parents, teachers, clinicians, spiritual leaders, public officials, and businesses – around responsible and productive use of digital media with and for children and adolescents? (Dr. Elizabeth Englander, Bridgewater State University)
8. What are best practices for digital media platforms and content to support the social, emotional, and intellectual needs of children, and even more specifically children with disabilities?
(Dr. Jessica Cantlon, University of Rochester)
9. What is the impact of digitally mediated technology on intimacy, friendship and long-term relationships? What is lost, what is gained and what is simply different among various types of “friendship”? (Dr. Katie Davis, University of Washington)
10. What new opportunities does digital media offer us to improve health via targeted interventions, access to healthcare, increased support during illness, messaging to support healthy lifestyles and other innovative approaches? (Dr. Megan Moreno, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Center for Child Health Behavior and Development)
11. What is the long-term impact of media multitasking? How does our multi-tasking environment affect the primary tasks of childhood, teenage years and early adulthood when the brain is not yet fully formed (i.e., communication, empathy, learning, memory, motor development, executive functioning, sleep cycles and brain development)? (Dr. Larry Rosen, Cal State Dominguez Hills)
12. What are the safe limits of evening technology use for children and adolescents’ sleep? (Dr. Michael Gradisar, Flinders University, Australia)
13. How do encounters with violent media in the interactive digital space differ from those in traditional linear media? What new kinds of research are needed to examine the attraction and impact of violent media? (Dr. Brad Bushman, Ohio State University)
14. How can we identify the effects of digital media on youth who are at-risk for emotional and/or behavioral problems? These youth may be particularly vulnerable to violent, provocative or overly stimulating content. However, digital media may also provide an outlet for vulnerable youth in search of social contact, a community of likeminded peers or support in dealing with difficult emotional issues. What is the landscape of media use/misuse by vulnerable, at-risk youth and what are reasonable guidelines that can inform their use? (Dr. Eliot Goldman, Columbia University Medical Center)
15. Do certain media experiences decrease an individual’s propensity for positive social and civic engagement? (Dr. Jeanne Brockmyer, University of Toledo)
16. What kinds of cyberbullying problems exist? (Dr. Ed Donnerstein, University of Arizona)
17. Are there developmental windows of opportunity or risk for introducing media and media multitasking to optimize benefits/minimize harm? (Dr. Kaveri Subrahmanyam, Cal State Los Angeles & Children’s Digital Media Centre at Los Angeles.)
18. Children are exposed to vast amounts of sexually charged media content. How does this get researched and addressed? (Dr. Ed Donnerstein, University of Arizona)
19. What are the best practices and guidelines that schools should incorporate for appropriate digital media education (and issues surrounding the use of digital media) into K-12? (Dr. Michelle Drouin, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne)
20. How does a generation that becomes accustomed to giving each other partial attention when they are together cope with emotional demands that require full attention? How does a generation that has been promised “the end of boredom” because their devices can always feed them something new, handle what is necessarily slow and slow paced about how human conversations unfold? (Dr. Sherry Turkle, MIT)
21. Why (psychologically) are more violent youth attracted to watching and using more violent media even after it is known that it makes them more violent. The attraction results in a downward spiral of using more media violence and behaving more violently? (Dr. Rowell Huesmann, University of Michigan)
22. What are the effects of violent video game effects on aggression, violence? (Craig Anderson, Iowa State University)
23. What social media variables relate to increased or reduced aggression? (Craig Anderson, Iowa State University)
24. What are the effects of video games on pro-social behavior? (Craig Anderson, Iowa State University)
25. How do social media influence attention? How do action games influence real world attention problems (ADD, ADHD, impulsivity) . How do action games influence basic executive control processes? (Craig Anderson, Iowa State University)
26. What are the effects of media on cognitive development and education? (Dan Anderson, Prof. Emeritus, University of Amherst)
27. To what extent are these effects due to media use itself, including time displacement from more valuable activities? (Dan Anderson, Prof. Emeritus, University of Amherst)
28. To what extent are these effects due to media content? (Dan Anderson, Prof. Emeritus, University of Amherst)
29. With respect to cognitive development, are there good and bad ways to use media? (Dan Anderson, Prof. Emeritus, University of Amherst)
30. Are there good and bad types of media content? (Dan Anderson, Prof. Emeritus, University of Amherst)
31. How are digital technologies impacting the nature of bullying? In what ways does the internet allow for greater agency for youth to intervene and support peers and in what ways might it limit the ability for youth to access adult assistance since adults are less present and less able to discipline for off campus speech? (Dr. Patti Agatston, Clemson University & the Prevention/Intervention Center)
32. How can we use media advocacy in the digital age to equip children, youth and adults for influencing policy and environmental change? (Dr. Lori Dorfman, Berkeley Media Studies Group)
33. How can we use and augment existing data sources on youth well-being to assess the benefits and risks of technology in child development (David Finkelhor, University of New Hampshire)
34. What familial, societal and economic factors have the largest influence on young people’s media habits and choices? (Dr. Shaheen Shariff, McGill University)
35. What influence does popular culture and adult modeling of on and offline behaviors have on children’s use of digital and social media?( Dr. Shaheen Shariff, McGill University)
36. What familial, societal and economic factors influence media habits and choices of traditionally underrepresented families? (Dr. Kevin Clark, George Mason University.)
37. What are best practices for digital media platforms and content to support the social, emotional, and intellectual needs of children from traditionally underrepresented communities? (Dr. Kevin Clark, George Mason University.)
38. What role do media play in developing young people’s views of themselves and others, especially regarding gender, race, ethnicity, and social class? (Dr. Erica Scharrer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
39. What is the impact of media and other cultural forces on young people’s body image-related variables? (Body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, etc.) How do we understand this research in relationship with research pertaining to media’s role in the childhood obesity epidemic? (Dr. Erica Scharrer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
40. What does media literacy education have to offer for (1) our understanding of how young people negotiate their media-rich lives and (2) the potential to develop a critical thinking orientation toward media? Does the critical analysis of media in school settings help equip young people to navigate their relationships/interactions with media? Might a critical orientation mitigate some media effects? (Dr. Erica Scharrer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
41. How can unhealthy forms of video game use (excessive use, problematic/pathological use) better be prevented by improving structural/situational prevention (e.g. product design, advertisement, gaming opportunities in public spaces, protection of minors). (Dr. Florian Rehbein, Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, Germany)
42. How can we improve diagnostic assessment regarding Internet gaming disorder and Internet addiction? (Dr. Florian Rehbein, Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, Germany)
43. Most of our tools for studying media and psychological, social, emotional and behavioral development were forged for the television age. What new research tools do we need to invent, so that future research is rooted in the current and evolving media ecosystem?
44. Do the recent (positive and negative) experiences with social media teach us anything new about brain function?
45. What do we know about how neurological and psychosocial changes to children and adolescents are being reflected in cultural changes? How can we study these potential effects?
46. Can we develop a Code of Ethics for uses of informatics to track digitally what kids are doing online and on mobile devices?
47. Under what circumstances – individual, group or societal – might media use (in its amount, content or context) contribute to anxiety in children and adolescents?
48. What is a healthy media diet?
49. What are the risks presented by young people’s “always-wired” ecosystem – classroom, home and everywhere in between – and what are the opportunities for extending students’ engagement with their studies in informal contexts?
50. Given such a rapidly changing media environment, how will we design 5, 10, and 25-year large-scale national multicenter research studies on the total impact of digital media combining texting, gaming, online use, and social networking?
51. What new terms, methods, structures or assumptions do we need in order to build digital research agendas that don’t simply mimic the models of the TV research era?
52. What do we need to do now to understand more deeply who is going online, what kinds of things children are doing, and what opportunities or challenges are involved?
53. What are the reasonable boundaries to expect for children’s privacy and personal information?
54. What are best practices for intervention in media addiction? What are best practices for prevention? (For instance tech screens, usage guidelines, unplug protocols?)
55. The ability to create – not just consume media is a powerful element of media literacy education, but is it possible to safeguard children’s privacy and still empower them to create and share media?
56. How are children and youth using the internet to promote social and civic engagement?
57. Which technology risks are more or less serious? And for whom?
58. What is the relationship between media consumption and sleep deprivation? What role does sleep play in learning and memory consolidation?