Abstract:
Digital technology and devices like tablets and smartphones are becoming increasingly pervasive in young children’s everyday experiences, reshaping their developmental conditions and outcomes. Empirical observations in existing literature portray children’s different play actions and engagement with concrete objects in real life (concrete play) compared with their play actions and engagement with virtual objects on tablets (virtual play). However, there is a lack of theoretical understanding regarding how concrete experiences with play objects in real life differ from moving and manipulating virtual objects on tablets in terms of their affordances for developmental conditions. Yet, this theoretical knowledge is essential for educators and families to make more informed pedagogical decisions regarding how they can place concrete play and virtual play in their everyday institutional practices to maximise children’s developmental outcomes. To fill this theoretical gap, this conceptual paper theorises the different developmental affordances of concrete play versus virtual play for young children using cultural-historical concepts such as 'social situation of development' and 'artefact-mediated actions'. It is argued that these cultural-historical concepts offer educators and families useful conceptual tools to understand the developmental conditions afforded by these two types of play.