Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Jan 9, 2026
Date Accepted: Jul 27, 2026
Comparison of capturing children’s technology use using wearable camera and fixed room video
ABSTRACT
Background:
There are many challenges in measuring contemporary screen use by children To better understand the potential impact of technology on children, it is crucial to have robust methods to measure technology use. Visual recording data are particularly well suited to capture contemporary digital technology use (e.g., rapid transitions, multitasking, device switching). It would be valuable to directly compare the two commonly used methods (wearable camera images and room video frames) to determine what is captured best by each and how they compare when both are coded by human annotation.
Objective:
This study aimed to compare wearable camera images and room video frames to understand what can be captured from each source.
Methods:
In a laboratory study, children (ages 3-14) performed various tasks wearing a wearable camera and being video recorded by room video cameras. Comparison between the coding of the wearable camera images and room video frames were on a second-by-second basis. Confusion matrices were generated to identify patterns of differences in classifications between wearable camera image and room video frame coding. Percent agreement between the wearable camera image and room video frame coding was calculated based on the confusion matrix.
Results:
Across 44 participants, 182,451 contemporaneous wearable camera images and room video frames were coded and merged. There were generally low levels of agreement between the codes. Highest agreement was found for ‘desktop’ and ‘handheld gaming’, and lowest agreement was for ‘smartwatch’. The wearable camera and room video varied on sampling rate, camera movement, and field of view leading to differences in what was captured.
Conclusions:
Room video might better capture technology that is within a set space and the context of the technology use, while wearable cameras could better capture the active technology use, the content of the technology, and different locations. Capturing technology use by children is difficult, with no gold standard and no one ideal method.
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