Mothering in a digital age – a first-time mother’s account of using an infant tracking application
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Philippa Amery
Philippa Amery is a PhD candidate exploring first-time mothers’ everyday digital practices in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include mother-infant, family, and classroom interactions, motherhood studies and early childhood education.
,
Susan Danby
Susan Danby is Distinguished Professor and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and Distinguished Professor of Education at the Queensland University of Technology. She received her PhD titled
Interaction and Social Order in Preschool from the University of Queensland in 1998. Her research interests include early years language and social interaction, childhood studies, and young children’s engagement with digital technologies.
and
Maryanne Theobald
Maryanne Theobald is an Associate Professor of Education at the Queensland University of Technology. She received her PhD titled
Participation and Social Order in the Playground from the Queensland University of Technology in 2009. Her research interests include early childhood education, children’s talk-in-interaction in disputes and friendships in the home, school, playground, with digital technologies and in multilingual contexts.
Abstract
There is a prevalent belief that ‘good’ mothers should avoid using smartphones around their infants, as it is thought to harm infant development and the mother-infant relationship. Despite this belief, many mothers find smartphones beneficial for accessing online support and information during the postpartum period. The social role of ‘mother’ comes with a suite of cultural, social, and moral expectations on how to behave and care for children. With the recent uptake of seeking parenting information or advice via smartphones and mobile applications (apps), a new social and educational discourse is emerging. Mothers are using digital technologies in various ways to support their mothering practices. However, there is limited understanding of the nuances of how, what, why, or when mothers use mobile apps or web-searching. Using one fragment of ethnomethodological interview data and adopting a ‘culture-in-action’ lens, we explore how a first-time mother constructs moral versions of ‘mother’ through her use of a baby app to support her mothering practices. Our analysis reveals the mother’s cultural knowledge-in-use, showing smartphones as valuable resources for improving and supporting mothering practices. This study underscores the importance of understanding how mothers integrate smartphone technologies into their mothering practices in practical and beneficial ways.
Funding source: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Australia and the Queensland University Postgraduate Research Award (QUTPRA)
About the authors
Philippa Amery is a PhD candidate exploring first-time mothers’ everyday digital practices in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child at the Queensland University of Technology. Her research interests include mother-infant, family, and classroom interactions, motherhood studies and early childhood education.
Susan Danby is Distinguished Professor and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and Distinguished Professor of Education at the Queensland University of Technology. She received her PhD titled Interaction and Social Order in Preschool from the University of Queensland in 1998. Her research interests include early years language and social interaction, childhood studies, and young children’s engagement with digital technologies.
Maryanne Theobald is an Associate Professor of Education at the Queensland University of Technology. She received her PhD titled Participation and Social Order in the Playground from the Queensland University of Technology in 2009. Her research interests include early childhood education, children’s talk-in-interaction in disputes and friendships in the home, school, playground, with digital technologies and in multilingual contexts.
Acknowledgments
We thank the Australian Research Council and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (Project CE200100022), and the families involved in the research. We sincerely thank the mothers and their babies for their generous and invaluable contributions. Without their time and effort, this study would not have been possible.
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Research ethics: This research project was approved by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Human Research Ethics Committee (UHREC). QUT Ethics Approval Number: 4407.
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Conflict of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest.
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Research funding: This work was fully funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Australia and the Queensland University Postgraduate Research Award (QUTPRA).
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Data availability: The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
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Permission to reproduce material from other sources: There is no material from other sources.
Appendix: Transcription Symbols and Conventions
Transcripts for this article have been transcribed using Gail Jefferson transcription symbol system for vocal utterances (Jefferson 2004a), and the Lorenza Mondada (2022) transcription symbol system for multimodal, embodied actions (e.g., gesture and gaze). See Mondada (2018) for a conceptual discussion on multimodal transcription.
Transcription Conventions
Spoken (Capital and bold writing describe any spoken interactions).
Multimodal (lower-case writing describes any multimodal, embodied actions).
| Interviewer: | INT/int |
| Jess (mother): | JESS/jess |
| ● | delimits gaze by Jess |
| * | delimits embodied actions by Jess (mother) |
| + | delimits embodied actions by interviewer |
Jefferson Transcription Symbols (Jefferson 2004a)
| He:::llo | previous sound is prolonged |
| °yes° | Indicates quietness or softness of a spoken word |
| Help | the underline denotes the word or part of the word is spoken with emphasis |
| HELP | Capital letters indicate loudness |
| (hello) | Indicates that the transcriber is unsure of what was spoken |
| ( ) | Words spoken inaudible |
| ((sits down)) | Indicates verbal description of actions or gestures |
| (1.2) | Indicates the length of silences, pauses or gaps in the conversation in 10ths of seconds. |
| (.) | Indicates a micropause |
| ↑ | Marking rising intonation |
| ↓ | Marking falling intonation |
| ? | Indicates a rising inflection at the end of a word |
| ?, | Indicates rising inflection that is less marked |
| , | Indicates a slight fall in intonation at the end of a word’ |
| .hhhh | Intake of breath |
| hhhh. | Exhaling of breath |
| [Okay] | Indicates an overlap with multiple speakers |
| =why | The utterance is latched onto the previous utterance with no pause or gap |
| >can you < | The word or words are uttered quickly |
| <please> | The word or words are uttered slowly |
Multimodal Transcription Symbols (Mondada 2022)
| * * | Descriptions of embodied actions are delimited between |
| + + | two identical symbols (one symbol per participant and per type of action) |
| ∆ ∆ | that are synchronized with correspondent stretches of talk or time indications |
| *---> | The action described continues across subsequent lines |
| ---->* | until the same symbol is reached |
| >> | The action described begins before the excerpt’s beginning |
| --->> | The action described continues after the excerpt’s end |
| …… | Action’s preparation |
| ---- | Action’s apex is reached and maintained |
| ,,,,, | Action’s retraction |
| int | Participant doing the embodied action is identified in small caps in the margin |
| fig | The exact moment at which a screen shot has been taken is indicated with a sign (#) showing its position within the turn/a time measure |
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