Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development

Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development is a 501C(3) non-profit organization founded by Dr. Pamela Hurst-Della Pietra, who has spent her career in public service ranging from non-profit development, medicine and philanthropy devoted to children and adolescents. As a parent herself, Dr. Hurst-Della Pietra was curious eight years ago to understand the cognitive and long-term impacts of frequent technology use among her own children. She started Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development in 2013 to:

– Provide a forum for researchers, clinicians, and other experts from a wide variety of disciplines to meet, collaborate, and share research

– Advance funding in the emerging field of digital media and children

– Provide parents and educators with the resources and answers to questions they have to raise happy and healthy children in the digital age.

She created the Institute as the principle vehicle through which she and others could address three urgent questions:

1. How is digital media enhancing or impairing children’s ability to live happy, healthy, and productive lives?

2. How are years of electronically mediated interactions shaping children’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development?

3. What should we do about it?

The Institute promotes objective, inclusive, integrative scientific research by scholars with diverse perspectives from all relevant disciplines. In this way, it facilitates collaborative achievements beyond the reach of any one kind of expert.