Young Children, Media Characters, and Learning

[Dr. Naomi Aguiar]: They also feel as though they have an attachment to these characters, and by attachment what we mean is they feel bonded emotionally. They feel a sense of comfort, safety and security in interacting with these media characters. And they also feel a sense of trust. And the trust is the importance, the key linchpin to thinking about, “Well, what are the real world consequences of these imaginary relationships?” So it turns out what we’ve learned from research with preschool-age children and toddlers is that children are more likely to learn from video and they’re more likely to learn from video games if they’re already familiar with a character who’s scaffolding the lessons in those games.