
Children’s Perspectives of Technoference
Pl: Associate Professor Cara Swit
Al: Professor Sarach Coyne
Technoference—the disruption of interpersonal interactions by technology—is a common feature of contemporary family life2-3. Parents spend an average of 9 hours/day engaged with digital media, with ~4 hours on their smartphone averaging 67 phone checks per day4-6. Technoference has altered the frequency and quality of social interactions, especially parent-child interactions, and has contributed to disconnection in families, fuelled the global mental health crisis, and most critically, created a generation of children who must constantly compete with technology for their parent’s attention. This study has three aims:
1) Examine the effects of two forms of parent-child interaction disruption: a) technoference (e.g., answering a text message) and b) non-technological disruption (e.g., answering the door) on the quality of parental caregiving behaviour, child behaviour and parent-child dyadic connection.
2) Document 5-8 year old’s perspectives of technoference and non-technological disruptions using developmentally-appropriate participatory methods that enable the expression of their views.
3) Measure the influence of child (e.g., age), parental (e.g., attitudes towards media) and family environmental factors (e.g., media use in the family) on children’s responses to technoference and non-technological disruptions.
This project is funded by a Royal Society Marsden Fast Start Grant (2024-2027)

Thrive – Building Positive Social Relationships to Maximise Wellbeing in Early Childhood
Pl: Associate Professor Cara Swit
Al: Associate Professor Seth Harty
The THRIVE study was conducted between 2019- 2023 in six kindergartens across Canterbury New Zealand. The goal of this study was to examine early childhood development from a holistic perspective, involving parents, teachers, and children in the study. Below are some of the topics we specifically examined in this study. We continue to publish the findings from this study.
The health and wellbeing of kaiako and caregivers
• Access to quality social support
• Experiences of leisure time
• Parental burnout/ Teacher job stress
• Sleep quality
• Depressive symptoms
The quality of relationships
• Teacher-parent relationships
• Relationships with child/ren
• Peer-peer relationships
• Sibling relationships
• Technoference
Parenting/teaching behaviours
• Daily parenting/teaching practices
• Media use, reasons for using media, parental \attitudes towards media, and monitoring behaviours
• Confidence in parenting teaching
Child development and wellbeing
• Sleep quality
• Anxiety
• Aggressive and prosocial behaviours
• Happiness and sadness
• Executive functioning
• Emotion regulation
• Friendship

Supporting Rangatahi to Thrive in a Media Saturated World
Pl: Cara Swit
Al: Jennifer Smith, Aaron Hāpuku, Helena Cook, Okirano Fialele , Finn Barclay, Rosa Hibbert-Schooner, Kirsten Nation, Lusi Abernethy
Between 2023 and 2024, we worked with 77 young people from underserved groups, including Māori, Pacific, Deaf, and Rainbow communities, through 19 focus groups across the North and South Islands of Aotearoa New Zealand. Using participatory approaches, we partnered with
young people at every stage of the research to explore how media and technology impact their mental health and wellbeing. Our findings are rich and insightful, offering a nuanced understanding of these challenges and affordances. Although the data analysis is complete, we continue to collaborate with young people to translate the key findings into meaningful and impactful outcomes. This work was proudly supported by the Oakley Mental Health Foundation, InternetNZ, and the University of Canterbury’s Vision Mātauranga

Parental Burnout Across the Globe
Pl: Professors Isabelle Roskam and Moïra Mikolajczak Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) Belgium
Al: Associate Professor Cara Swit for the Aotearoa New Zealand contribution to the project
Associate Professor Cara Swit is the Aotearoa New Zealand representative on the International Consortium for Parental Burnout. In 2023, two studies were conducted involving 52 countries.
These two studies aimed to expand our understanding of different types of physical, emotional, and cognitive causes and consequences of parental burnout around the world. The information from these studies will help to enhance our understanding of how parental exhaustion and burnout presents in different countries, and across mothers and fathers.