Objective vs. perceived maternal smartphone use and observed mother-infant interaction quality

Introduction: Prior research links maternal smartphone use to reduced sensitivity and responsiveness to infant cues, but emerging evidence suggests that mothers' perceptions of their smartphone use - such as feelings of empowerment or distress - may also shape the quality of mother-infant interactions. This study examined how both objective and perceived smartphone use related to mother-infant interaction quality in naturalistic settings.

Method: Participants were 147 mother-infant dyads from a longitudinal study of smartphone use and infant development. When infants were 2 months old, mothers completed 5 days of ecological momentary assessment (EMA), reporting time spent with their infant, perceived smartphone-related interruption (technoference), distress, and empowerment. Mothers' smartphone use was monitored continuously across the 5 day EMA period via installed mobile applications. Dyads also participated in a feeding observation; videos were later coded to assess overall interaction quality and dyadic contingency, both derived from six domain-specific subscales representing mothers' and infants' contributions to the interaction. Multivariable regression examined associations between mother-infant interaction quality and mothers' typical level of smartphone use around their infants, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment.

Results: Greater smartphone-related empowerment was positively associated with greater engagement of the infant in socioemotional growth fostering experiences, greater infant clarity of cues and responsiveness to the mother, better dyadic contingency, and greater overall interaction quality. No significant associations were found for typical level of smartphone use, perceived technoference, or smartphone-related distress.

Discussion: How mothers feel about their smartphone use - particularly feelings of empowerment - may be more closely related to the quality of their interactions with their young infants than the amount or perceived negative impacts of their smartphone use.

1 Introduction

In today's digitally connected world, smartphones are ever-present and often within arm's reach, even during the most intimate and meaningful moments of early parenting (Auxier et al., 2020). Research employing objective measures of parent smartphone use estimates that parents of young children spend approximately 2.5-5 h per day on their smartphones and are on their smartphones an average of 27% of the time they spend with their child, with some parents using their smartphones during up to 75% of parent-child time (McDaniel et al., 2023, 2024; Tharner et al., 2022). Parents most often use their smartphones for social networking, information seeking, and communication, but also for a variety of other purposes such as video streaming and mobile gaming (McDaniel et al., 2023, 2025; Yuan et al., 2019). This constant connectivity presents a paradox: smartphones may displace, detract from, or disrupt parent-child interactions, but are also a source of valuable support, information, entertainment, and social connection (Hood et al., 2022; Radesky et al., 2016; Wolfers, 2021).

High-quality parent-infant interactions-characterized by mutual attention, sensitive responsiveness, and emotional availability–are foundational for the development of infants' self-regulation skills, emotional competence, cognitive abilities, and physical health (Eshel et al., 2006; Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000). Parent sensitivity to infant cues and responsiveness to infant distress are central features of early caregiving interactions. These behaviors ensure that infants' signals are recognized and met in ways that are contingent and developmentally appropriate, fostering early trust, secure attachment, and healthy socioemotional development (Ainsworth and Bell, 1969; Bowlby, 1977a,b, 1978). Through such interactions, infants also develop a sense of agency and learn that their behaviors can influence their social world. However, interaction quality is shaped by inputs from both members of the dyad (Brazelton et al., 1974), with infants contributing to interactions through the clarity of their cues and their responsiveness to caregivers' engagement attempts (Goldberg, 1977). The mutual back-and-forth between parents and infants—often referred to as dyadic contingency—reflects the degree to which each partner's behavior is temporally and behaviorally responsive to the other's. High dyadic contingency, fostered by sensitivity, contingent responsiveness, and engagement from both the parent and the infant, promotes mutually rewarding exchanges that support secure attachment, socioemotional competence, and cognitive development (Eshel et al., 2006; Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000). Thus, the potential for smartphones to reduce the amount and quality of parent-infant interactions is concerning (Baram and Bolton, 2019; Braune-Krickau et al., 2021; Komanchuk et al., 2023). Although both mothers and fathers are important for shaping early development (Diniz et al., 2021), much of the research examining potential impacts of smartphone use on parent-child interactions during infancy has focused on mothers given they tend to take on the majority of infant care responsibilities, even when both parents are employed (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025).

Both observational and experimental studies demonstrate associations between maternal technology use and the quality of mother-infant interactions. Observational research illustrates that when mothers are distracted by smartphones and other forms of technology during infant feeding, care, and supervision, they exhibit lower sensitivity and responsiveness to their children (Abels and Vanden Abeele, 2018; Bury et al., 2020; Golen and Ventura, 2015a; Hiniker et al., 2015; Ochoa et al., 2021; Vanden Abeele et al., 2020; Wolfers et al., 2020). Greater maternal technology use is also associated with less responsive parenting across multiple domains, including more frequent use of food for emotion regulation, greater reliance on pressuring or unresponsive feeding and parenting practices, less modeling of healthy eating, and lower use of responsive feeding and parenting practices (Ventura et al., 2020; Vik et al., 2021). In addition, mothers who more frequently engage with technology around their infants report greater parenting stress and depression, greater hostility toward motherhood-related lifestyle changes, and lower feelings of attachment to their infant (Alvarez Gutierrez and Ventura, 2021; Newsham et al., 2020), all of which may further decrease the quality of mother-infant interactions.

Studies wherein maternal device use is experimentally manipulated provide even stronger evidence for the negative impacts of technology use on the quality of mother-infant interactions. These studies illustrate that the use of smartphones and other mobile devices during various types of interactions (e.g., feeding, learning, play) decreases mothers' attention to their infants and disrupts the establishment of joint attention between mothers and infants when compared to device-free interactions (Krapf-Bar et al., 2022; Mason et al., 2024; Nomkin and Gordon, 2021; Porter et al., 2024; Ventura et al., 2019). Subsequently, mothers exhibit lower sensitivity and responsiveness to infant cues, are less likely to engage their infant in cognitive growth fostering experiences (e.g., they talk to their infants less), and have shorter joint attention episodes with their infants (Krapf-Bar et al., 2022; Mason et al., 2024; Nomkin and Gordon, 2021; Ventura et al., 2019). In addition, experimental studies that use the modified mobile still face paradigm, wherein mothers are instructed to engage with their smartphone for 2 mins while not responding to their infants, illustrate that infants react to these sustained interruptions to maternal attention with decreases in positive affect (e.g., laughing and smiling) and increases in negative affect (e.g., fussing, crying) and social bids (Myruski et al., 2018; Rozenblatt-Perkal et al., 2022; Stockdale et al., 2020). Thus, when mothers use smartphones during mother-infant interactions, key elements of high-quality interactions—such as mutual attention, responsiveness, and emotional availability—are negatively impacted in ways that may affect infants' socioemotional, cognitive, and physical development.

Despite evidence that maternal smartphone use around infants is cause for concern, emerging research suggests that mothers' experiences and feelings related to smartphone use (e.g., empowerment, distress) may also influence mother-infant interactions. Mothers recognize many benefits of smartphone use, including access to information about parenting, newborn care, and postpartum recovery (Baker and Yang, 2018; Hood et al., 2022, 2024; Wolfers, 2021). Mothers also report that social media provides valued opportunities to communicate with other women and obtain advice and social support (Baker and Yang, 2018). Indeed, greater connection to others via social media predicts greater perceptions of social support, which, in turn, predicts lower parenting stress and marital conflict and greater marital satisfaction during the postpartum period (McDaniel et al., 2012). In addition, qualitative studies suggest that many pregnant women and new mothers believe their smartphone use enhances their feelings of attachment to their infants. This perception stems from the ability to access pregnancy and parenting-related information, receive advice, visualize fetal development, and better understand what to expect during the perinatal period (Hood et al., 2022, 2024). These benefits align with the Psychological Empowerment Theory, which conceptualizes parent empowerment as a multidimensional process through which parents gain the confidence, knowledge, relationships, and capacity to influence their life circumstances (Christens, 2012; Stavrositu and Sundar, 2012), as well as Self-Determination Theory, which recognizes that individuals have basic needs for autonomy, competence, and connectedness, and fulfillment of these needs leads to greater levels of intrinsic motivation and, subsequently, healthier outcomes (Ryan and Deci, 2000). Thus, smartphones may facilitate both empowerment and intrinsic motivation by helping mothers cultivate social networks, share and receive parenting strategies, and engage in reciprocal support and by meeting mothers' basic needs for autonomy, control over their life, and interconnectedness with others (McDaniel et al., 2022; Radesky et al., 2016; Stavrositu and Sundar, 2012; Torres et al., 2021; Wolfers, 2021). Such empowerment may enhance mothers' emotional availability, confidence, and responsiveness during daily interactions with infants, ultimately supporting high-quality mother-infant interactions and healthy infant development (Baffour and Chonody, 2012; Gago et al., 2022; Grafft et al., 2024).

However, many mothers express ambivalence about their smartphone use, recognizing it can also decrease feelings of connectedness to their infants and families (Hood et al., 2022, 2024). Perceived technoference—defined as the sense that technology use interferes with interpersonal interactions—has been linked to greater parenting stress and lower relationship satisfaction in mothers (McDaniel, 2021; McDaniel and Coyne, 2016b; McDaniel et al., 2018). Moreover, individual differences have been noted for mothers' internal experiences: some mothers feel their smartphone use supports their early parenting experiences in positive ways (Coyne et al., 2022; Hood et al., 2022, 2024) while others feel their use leads to guilt, stress, and anxiety, as well as distraction from and disruption to mother-infant interactions (Hood et al., 2022, 2024; Radesky et al., 2016; Wolfers, 2021), leading many to desire to modify their phone habits (McDaniel et al., 2023).

Despite the focus of previous research on how frequently mothers use their smartphones and how that use affects mother-infant interactions, emerging research illustrates that the extent to which mothers use their smartphones does not always align with how they feel about their use. For example, McDaniel et al. (2024) recently identified typologies of parent smartphone users based on intensity of objectively-measured use. Some parents were “Low Users,” who on average used their smartphones for 2.4 h per day, and during 10% of the time they spent with their infant. Three typologies of “Moderate Users” were identified who used their smartphones for ~5 h per day and ~25-30% of the time they spent with their infant. Although these groups were similar in their use, they were distinguished by whether they engaged in greater social networking, video chatting, or mobile gaming app use. Finally, “Heavy Users” used their smartphones for approximately 8 h per day and for ~50% of the time spent with their infant. These users spent the most time on social networking and messaging apps. Notably, no between-group differences were seen for the extent to which parents felt distracted by their devices or perceived their device use to be problematic, suggesting that heavy users do not necessarily feel worse about their usage patterns than light users.

Indeed, mothers differ in their views of how much and when technology use is appropriate during parenting (Radesky et al., 2016; Wolfers, 2021; Zurcher et al., 2020), and some experience struggles around controlling their use and/or thoughts or behaviors that resemble addiction-like qualities (e.g., feeling drawn to use, increasing tolerance)(McDaniel, 2021). Jang and Lee (2022) identified four types of mothers of young children based on their perceptions and use of different smartphone apps. “Multi-adapters” use their smartphones for functional purposes, such as communication and information seeking, and see their smartphones as playing a positive role in enhancing their parenting effectiveness. Similarly, “self-development focused users” use apps for personal growth and to achieve positive changes in their lives. In contrast, “chaos dilemma users” recognize negative impacts of their smartphone use on their parenting confidence and daily functioning but feel unable to curb their smartphone use. Finally, “time killer dependent users” use apps to relieve stress and pass time, but express guilt about using their smartphones in these ways. These differences in subjective experiences may differentially impact whether and how mothers integrate smartphones into their caregiving roles and the implications of their smartphone use for infant development.

Taken together, these findings suggest assessing both the objective duration of and feelings about smartphone use may lead to a more nuanced understanding of the potential impacts of maternal smartphone use during early infancy. To date, few studies incorporate both objective and perceptual measures of smartphone use. Moreover, little is known about how mothers' perceptions of their use—particularly feelings of use-induced distress or empowerment—relate to observed mother-infant interactions. Finally, although previous studies have been informative to understand implications of certain types of maternal smartphone use in different contexts, a limitation of these studies is that they are often conducted in laboratories or public settings, not families' homes, limiting ecological validity and leaving open questions about how these dynamics unfold in everyday family life. Thus, further research is needed to address these research gaps by incorporating more comprehensive assessments of maternal smartphone use in more ecologically valid settings.

To address these gaps, the current study examined how multiple dimensions of maternal smartphone use, including objectively-measured typical level of use during time around their infant, perceived technoference, and feelings of distress and empowerment, relate to the quality of mother-infant interactions. We assessed whether mothers' objective and subjective experiences with their smartphones were associated with the quality of their interactions with their young infants. Although mothers and infants interact in a wide variety of contexts (e.g., play, soothing), feeding provides a particularly rich and ecologically valid context for assessing relationship quality (D'Angeli et al., 2022; Pesch and Lumeng, 2017). Feeding is a primary caregiving context in early infancy—occurring 8 to 12 times per day—and is inherently reciprocal, requiring caregivers to recognize, interpret, and respond to infants' cues related to hunger, satiation, engagement, and disengagement. However, the significance of feeding interactions extends beyond nutrition given these interactions offer numerous opportunities for mothers to learn and contingently respond to infants' social cues, foster early socioemotional and cognitive growth through behaviors such as eye contact, smiling, and verbal exchanges, and support infants' emerging self-regulation skills (Oxford and Findlay, 2015). Thus, observations of feeding interactions provide a well-established and theoretically-grounded method for evaluating broader features of mother–infant relationship quality that are foundational for healthy socioemotional and cognitive development (Ainsworth and Bell, 1969; Chatoor et al., 1998; Oxford and Findlay, 2015; Price, 1983). By incorporating both behavioral and perceptual measures and capturing interactions in relevant, everyday settings, this study aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how maternal smartphone use relates to early caregiving experiences. The following research questions and hypotheses guided the present study:

RQ1: How do mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment relate to maternal (a) sensitivity to infant cues, (b) responsiveness to infant distress, (c) socioemotional growth fostering, and (d) cognitive growth fostering when infants are 2 months old?

Hypothesis 1a, b, c, d: Greater typical level of smartphone use, perceived technoference, and feelings of smartphone-related distress and lower feelings of smartphone-related empowerment will predict (a) lower maternal sensitivity to infant cues, (b) lower responsiveness to infant distress, (c) less socioemotional growth fostering, and (d) less cognitive growth fostering.

RQ2: How do mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment relate to (a) infant clarity of cues and (b) infant responsiveness to their mother when infants are 2 m old?

Hypothesis 2a, b: Greater typical level of smartphone use, perceived technoference, and feelings of smartphone-related distress and lower feelings of smartphone-related empowerment will predict (a) lower infant clarity of cues and (b) lower infant responsiveness to their mother.

RQ3: How do mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment relate to (a) dyadic contingency and (b) overall quality of mother-infant interaction when infants are 2 m old?

Hypothesis 3a, b: Greater typical level of smartphone use, perceived technoference, and feelings of smartphone-related distress and lower feelings of smartphone-related empowerment will predict (a) lower dyadic contingency and (b) lower overall quality of mother-infant interaction.

Hypotheses and analysis plans were pre-registered (see https://osf.io/mprh5/?view_only=70fa0bdf3eff49eca29fed746cb86dcc)

2 Method

2.1 Sample and design

Participants included mothers with young infants (< 2 m of age) from Project EMBRACE who were recruited through a large healthcare system in the Midwestern United States, along with targeted efforts including flyers, community outreach, and social media advertisements. Inclusion criteria were: (1) Woman age 18 or older, (2) in 3^rd trimester of pregnancy or legal and custodial guardian of a 0-12 week-old infant, (3) will live or is living with baby, (4) lives in the U.S., (5) reads and understands English, (6) owns a smartphone. Exclusion criteria were: (1) infant diagnosed with developmental delay, (2) infant was born pre-term, (3) infant had medical condition that interferes with oral feeding, (4) mother had spouse or co-parent already participating in the study.

Interested individuals were contacted via phone or email to assess eligibility and complete enrollment. A total of 205 mother-infant dyads were initially recruited, with 197 providing informed consent. Among these, 28 dyads did not complete the initial remote orientation and were therefore excluded. Of the remaining 169 who began the study, 166 completed a baseline survey when their infants were approximately 2 m of age, 163 completed a corresponding ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and smartphone use monitoring protocol across 5 days, and 153 participated in a remote feeding observation. Mother–infant dyads then also participated in monthly assessments when infants were approximately 3, 4, and 5 m old. The present study focused on the sample with complete data¹ from the baseline, 2 m assessment, which included 147 mothers (M_age = 29.80 years, SD = 4.22) and infants (48% [n = 71] female; M_age = 7.84 weeks, SD = 0.83, range 6.51–10.94 weeks). Sample characteristics are summarized in Table 1. 63 percent (n = 93) of mothers reported a bachelor's degree or higher, 14% (n = 20) identified as ethnic minority, and 63% (n = 93) were multiparous.

Table 1

Table 1. Sample characteristics.

Comparison analyses between the participants with complete (n = 147) vs. incomplete data (n = 19) for the month 2 assessment showed no differences for depressive symptoms, typical level of smartphone use while with infant, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment. After checking all demographic characteristics, we noted that those with incomplete data had significantly lower education levels [t(164) = −2.19, p = 0.03] and lower family income [t(164) = −2.39, p = 0.02]; they were also more likely to identify as ethnic minorities [χ²(1) = 6.67, p = 0.01].

2.2 Procedures and measures

The Institutional Review Board approved the study protocol, and informed consent was obtained from all mothers for their own and their infants' participation. Families received compensation of up to $250 upon completion of all study components across all 4 months of the study.

Participants were assessed via a combination of: (1) a 5 day burst of EMA surveys to assess mothers' perceptions of time spent with their infant and their feelings about smartphone use, (2) passive sensing of mothers' smartphone use across the same period to obtain objective data on mothers' typical level of smartphone use around their infants, (3) a video-recorded remote mother-infant feeding observation, and (4) a broader online survey to assess variables such as family sociodemographics and maternal depression. The EMA survey items used in the current paper are presented in Supplementary Materials, Section 1.

2.2.1 Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)

Mothers received five EMA surveys per day for 5 consecutive days (25 total). EMA survey links were texted to mothers at semi-random times each day. Each EMA survey included questions about how the mother spent her time, her infant's behavior, her mood, and her feelings regarding her smartphone use during the previous hour.

2.2.1.1 Time spent with infant

Mothers rated, in 15 min increments, the times they were with their infant during the previous hour, defined as being physically with or close to the infant (such as within 10 feet) and, when home, not including when in different rooms. Mothers also rated such things as when she was asleep, when the baby was asleep, and so forth in 15 min increments.

2.2.1.2 Perceived technoference

Mothers also rated their perceived level of technoference over the previous hour, defined as missing parenting moments due to smartphone use or feeling that smartphone use interrupted interactions with their infant (McDaniel and Coyne, 2016a). Technoference was assessed via two items (e.g., “How much did your phone use interrupt or get in the way of your interactions with or focus on your baby”), with response options ranging from 0 = Not at all to 4 = A great deal. Across all EMA survey data, the two items were significantly correlated (r = 0.55, p < 0.001). Items within a given EMA survey were averaged to create a single technoference score for that survey. Then, technoference scores from all the available EMA surveys were averaged within each participant to obtain a single score representing mothers' average level of perceived technoference. We assessed reliability using both the generalizability coefficient ρ² [which incorporates the number of occasions K in the study design (Brennan, 2001)] and McDonald's ω [which reflects between-level internal consistency of the items (Geldhof et al., 2014; McDonald, 1999)]. Between-person reliability was ρ² = 0.80 (K = 25 occasions; m = 2 items per occasion), and the between-level ω was 0.90, indicating excellent reliability for distinguishing individuals on their average technoference score across the study period.

2.2.1.3 Perceived smartphone-related distress

Feelings of smartphone-related distress were rated on two items developed by the research team (e.g., “Due to what I did on my phone, I felt worse about myself, my parenting, or my child”). These items were developed based on the research team's prior interviews with parents and research on parent feelings about their smartphone use (McDaniel, 2020a; Radesky et al., 2016; Torres et al., 2021; Wolfers, 2021). Response options ranged from 0 = Not at all to 4 = A great deal. Across all EMA survey data, the two items were significantly correlated (r = 0.53, p < 0.001). Items within a given EMA survey were averaged to create a single smartphone-related distress score for that survey. Then, smartphone-related distress scores from all the available EMA surveys were averaged within each participant to obtain a single score representing mothers' average level of smartphone-related distress. Between-person reliability was ρ² = 0.78 (K = 25; m = 2), and the between-level ω was 0.87, indicating excellent reliability for distinguishing individuals on their average smartphone-related distress score across the study period.

2.2.1.4 Perceived smartphone-related empowerment

Feelings of smartphone-related empowerment were rated on six items developed by the research team (e.g., “My phone use helped me feel more confident in my parenting” and “My phone use helped me have the ‘me time' I needed to keep going”). These items were developed based on the research team's prior interviews with parents and research on parent feelings about their smartphone use (McDaniel, 2020a; Radesky et al., 2016; Torres et al., 2021; Wolfers, 2021). Response options ranged from 0 = Not at all to 4 = A great deal. Across all EMA survey data, the items were significantly correlated (r = 0.33 to 0.84, p < 0.001). Items within a given EMA survey were averaged to create a single smartphone-related empowerment score for that survey. Then, smartphone-related empowerment scores from all the available EMA surveys were averaged within each participant to obtain a single score representing mothers' average level of smartphone-related empowerment. Between-person reliability was ρ² = 0.91 (K = 25; m = 6), and the between-level ω was 0.93, indicating excellent reliability for distinguishing individuals on their average smartphone-related empowerment score across the study period.

2.2.2 Passive sensing of smartphone use and smartphone use while with infant

Mothers' smartphone use was monitored continuously throughout the five-day EMA period via installed passive sensing mobile applications. Android users installed Chronicle, while iPhone users initially used both Chronicle and RealizD. Following technical disruptions to Chronicle's functionality caused by an iOS update, iPhone users switched to using Chronicle in combination with Avicenna. All apps were able to provide similar levels of smartphone screen use information. When available, data from Chronicle were prioritized; data from Avicenna or RealizD were used when Chronicle was not available. Smartphone use duration (in seconds) was calculated for the same 25 1 h windows assessed during the EMA surveys. For periods when both mother and infant were awake, we combined objective smartphone use data with EMA reports of when mothers were with their infants to calculate a smartphone use while with infant score. Specifically, we divided the duration of time that a mother used her smartphone while with her infant by the total time spent with the infant and multiplied by 100. This resulted in a score ranging from 0 to 100% for each 1 h EMA window (e.g., 0 = no smartphone use during mother-infant time vs. 100% = constant smartphone use during mother-infant time). Scores from up to 25 EMA windows per participant were then averaged to create a single score representing a mother's typical level of smartphone use while with her infant.

2.2.3 Remote feeding observations

The quality of mother-infant interactions was assessed via remote feeding observations. Remote observations occurred via Zoom Videoconferencing Software (https://zoom.us), a secure and widely adopted platform that offers end-to-end encryption, waiting room functionality, and password protection. Each video session was hosted by a research assistant and recorded for later video coding.

Participants engaged in remote feeding observations in locations within their homes where feeding typically occurred. These observations were scheduled to align with each infant's typical feeding time. Mothers were asked to use a laptop or tablet instead of a smartphone to promote high-quality video recordings. In addition, given smartphone use during infant feeding is a common occurrence among some caregivers (Coyne et al., 2022; Golen and Ventura, 2015b; Ventura et al., 2020; Ventura and Teitelbaum, 2017), our recommendation to use non-smartphone devices also served to avoid interfering with mothers' usual feeding routines or media use patterns by occupying their smartphone for the video call. 60 percent of mothers (n = 88) used a laptop or tablet for the remote feeding observation.

After a brief acclimation period and pre-feeding survey, mothers were instructed to feed their infant as they normally would. The research assistant leading the observation muted their audio and turned off their video feed to minimize their influence on the feeding. After the mother indicated the feeding was over, the researcher administered a brief post-feeding survey. Feeding mode during the feeding observation (i.e., whether the baby was breastfed or bottle-fed) was also noted (54% [n = 79] of infants were breastfed).

Videos were later coded by two trained research assistants who were masked to study hypotheses. Coders were certified on the Nursing Child Assessment Caregiver/Parent–Child Feeding Scale [NCAFS; (Oxford and Findlay, 2015)], a validated observational measure of the quality of mother-infant interactions. Coders rate the presence or absence of 76 observable behaviors that are combined into four subscales that assess maternal contributions to the feeding interaction (sensitivity to infant cues [e.g., “Caregiver slows the pace of feeding or pauses when child shows subtle disengagement cues;” 16 items], responsiveness to infant distress [e.g., “Caregiver makes soothing non-verbal efforts;” 11 items], socioemotional growth fostering [e.g., “Caregiver laughs or smiles during the feeding;” 14 items], cognitive growth fostering [e.g., “Caregiver verbally describes food or feeding situation to child during the feeding;” 9 items]) and two subscales that assess infant contributions to the feeding interaction (clarity of cues [e.g., “Child signals readiness to eat;” 15 items], responsiveness to the caregiver [e.g., “Child smiles at the caregiver during the feeding;” 11 items]). In addition, items from each of the above subscales (18 total) can be combined to create a dyadic contingency score representing contingency in mother and infant behaviors across all domains of interaction quality. All 76 items can be summed to create an overall quality of dyadic interaction score. For all subscales, the dyadic contingency score, and the overall quality of dyadic interaction score, higher scores indicate higher quality interactions.

Per NCAFS training standards, coders were required to achieve at least 90% agreement with gold-standard training videos before certification (Oxford and Findlay, 2015). Percent agreement was used as the index of inter-rater reliability, consistent with NCAFS training protocols. Reliability was monitored throughout the study through regular consultation with a certified NCAFS trainer (AKV), ongoing discussions to resolve coding discrepancies, and periodic recalibration to minimize coder drift. To assess ongoing reliability, 20% of study videos were coded by both raters. Across these double-coded videos, mean percent agreement was 98%, indicating excellent consistency between coders. We also tracked the percentage of NCAFS items that could not be coded due to video or audio quality issues. In our analytic sample of 147 mothers, the percentage of NCAFS items that could not be coded was very low: M = 0.26% of items, SD = 0.99%, range = 0% to 5.19%. Almost all participants (92.5%) had complete NCAFS data (i.e., had no items that could not be coded).

2.2.4 Online survey

An online survey was administered via REDCap, a secure web-based data capture platform (Harris et al., 2019, 2009). This survey included questionnaires that assessed family demographics and mothers' depressive symptoms.

2.2.4.1 Family sociodemographics

Mothers self-reported their age, education level, ethnic minority status, and parity. They also reported their infant's age and biological sex.

2.2.4.2 Depressive symptoms

Depressive symptoms were assessed via the 7-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Short Form (CES-D-SF) (Levine, 2013). Mothers rated their experiences of depressive symptoms over the prior week using a 4-point scale [0 = Rarely or none of the time (less than 1 day) to 3 = Most or all of the time (5-7 days)]. Item scores were averaged; internal consistency was α = 0.85.

2.3 Statistical analyses

Utilizing SPSS 26, we first examined descriptives and normality across variables (see Supplementary Materials, Section 2) and found that three variables had skewness values above 3 (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2013). Percentage of NCAFS items that could not be coded, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment had skewness values of 4.13, 7.36, and 3.46, respectively. Given 92.5% of the sample had zero NCAFS items that could not be coded, this variable was transformed to be binary (1 = yes, some coding items were missing; 0 = no coding items were missing). To transform the other variables, following Tabachnick and Fidell (2013) and Leys et al. (2019), we shifted any outliers down to the value of 3.29 standard deviations above the mean. This shifted one outlier for smartphone-related distress and 3 outliers for smartphone-related empowerment. This reduced skewness values for smartphone-related distress and empowerment to below 3, and to 2.95 and 1.84, respectively (see Supplementary Materials, Section 3). We then ran bivariate correlations among variables of interest.

To examine our research questions and hypotheses, we originally planned to conduct a series of eight multivariable regression models in SPSS, one for each observed mother-infant interaction quality outcome (i.e., sensitivity to infant cues, responsiveness to infant distress, socioemotional growth fostering, cognitive growth fostering, clarity of infant cues, infant responsiveness to mother, dyadic contingency, and the overall quality of the interaction). In all models, we controlled for infant age in weeks; mother age in years, education level, ethnic minority status, parity, and depressive symptoms; and feeding mode during the observation and whether the observation had missing NCAFS coding items. Predictor variables included mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment. For transparency, these preregistered analyses are presented in Supplementary Materials, Section 4.

However, to better account for shared variance and correlated residuals among the interaction quality outcomes, we ran a combined model in Mplus 8.6, which we estimated using maximum likelihood with robust standard errors (MLR) to account for non-normality in the observed variables. In this model, six regression equations—predicting the subscales sensitivity to infant cues, responsiveness to infant distress, socioemotional growth fostering, cognitive growth fostering, clarity of infant cues, and infant responsiveness to mother—were estimated simultaneously. We then ran two separate regression models in Mplus 8.6, also estimated with MLR, one predicting dyadic contingency and one predicting overall quality of interaction, as these are overall variables that include the observed items of the other subscales. Similar to our originally planned models, predictor variables included mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants, perceived technoference, smartphone-related distress, and smartphone-related empowerment. We controlled for infant age in weeks; mother age in years, education level, ethnic minority status, parity, and depressive symptoms; feeding mode during the observation, and whether the observation had some minor missing NCAFS coding items. For significant smartphone predictor variables, we examined the robustness of the results by evaluating statistical significance using the Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) procedure (Benjamini and Hochberg, 1995), which controls the expected proportion of false positives across multiple tests. Below we report (a) standardized regression estimates and model R² values for each outcome and (b) FDR-adjusted results summarized in a single table, where effects are ordered by their unadjusted p-values and presented with corresponding FDR significance thresholds. The latter table does not duplicate the regression models but instead indicates which associations remained statistically significant after controlling for multiple comparisons.

3 Results

Correlations between variables of interest, as well as means and standard deviations for each variable, are presented in Table 2. On average, mothers used their smartphones for 33.22% (SD = 16.99, range = 0.42%-88.58%) of the time they were with their infant during the EMA periods. 66 percent (n = 97) of mothers rated experiencing three or more depressive symptom items at least some of the time.

Table 2

Table 2. Correlations Between Study Variables and Descriptive Statistics.

Mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants was not correlated with mothers' perceptions about their use (i.e., technoference, distress, empowerment) or observed mother or infant behaviors during the feeding interaction. Perceived technoference was significantly and positively correlated with smartphone-related distress (r = 0.5, p < 0.001) and sensitivity to infant cues (r = 0.17, p = 0.04); thus, the more a mother perceived her smartphone led to interruptions to her interactions with her infant in her daily life, the greater her feelings of smartphone-related distress, but also the more sensitive she was to her infant's cues during the feeding observation. Smartphone-related empowerment was significantly and positively correlated with observed socioemotional growth fostering (r = 0.20, p = 0.02), infant responsiveness to the mother (r = 0.18, p = 0.03), dyadic contingency (r = 0.23, p < 0.01), and overall quality of interaction (r = 0.22, p < 0.01) during the feeding observation; thus, mothers who reported greater feelings of smartphone-related empowerment in their daily life also tended to have greater observed engagement of the infant in socioemotional growth fostering experiences, responsiveness from infants, and dyadic contingency, and overall higher quality interactions. Depressive symptoms were significantly and positively correlated with both smartphone-related distress (r = 0.22, p < 0.01) and smartphone-related empowerment (r = 0.26, p < 0.01) in that the more depressive symptoms experienced by the mother, the greater she felt both distressed and empowered by her smartphone use. There was also a small association of similar size between mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants and depressive symptoms, although this was not significant (r = 0.15, p = 0.07). As would be expected and consistent with previous research (Oxford and Findlay, 2015), we noted strong, positive correlations between most observed NCAFS subscales, as well as between the subscales, dyadic contingency scores, and overall quality of interaction scores.

3.1 Associations between objective and perceived smartphone use and maternal sensitivity, responsiveness, and socioemotional and cognitive growth fostering

Standardized estimates and model R² values with significance levels from all regression models are presented in Tables 3, 4, and 5. Full model results (e.g., adjusted R² values, unstandardized estimates, confidence intervals) are presented in Supplementary Materials, Section 5. Tests of robustness of the results and significance thresholds determined by the Benjamini-Hochberg FDR procedure are summarized in Table 6.

Table 3

Table 3. Standardized estimates for regression models predicting observed maternal contributions to the quality of feeding interactions.

Table 4

Table 4. Standardized estimates for regression models predicting observed infant contributions to the quality of feeding interactions.

Table 5

Table 5. Standardized estimates for regression models predicting observed dyadic contingency and overall quality of feeding interactions.

Table 6

Table 6. Effects of smartphone-related empowerment on observed outcomes.

With respect to associations between objective and perceived smartphone use and maternal contributions to the quality of feeding interactions (Table 3), our hypotheses were partially supported. We noted a positive association between smartphone-related empowerment and maternal sensitivity to infant cues (β = 0.14, p = 0.07, hypothesis 1a), socioemotional growth fostering (β = 0.25, p < 0.01, hypothesis 1c), and cognitive growth fostering (β = 0.14, p = 0.07, hypothesis 1d). Thus, mothers who felt more empowered by their smartphone use also tended to be mothers who showed more sensitivity toward their infants' cues and who engaged their infants in more socioemotional and cognitive growth fostering experiences during feeding. Yet, after correcting for multiple testing, only the association with socioemotional growth fostering met the threshold for statistical significance (Table 6). Thus, associations with sensitivity to infant cues and cognitive growth fostering were not robust and likely merit future exploration. Also of note, whether the mother engaged in breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding during the observed interaction was the strongest predictor in our model for sensitivity to infant cues (β = 0.38, p < 0.001), and including breastfeeding as a control reduced the statistical significance of smartphone-related empowerment in that model. Mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants and negative perceptions about smartphone use (i.e., perceived technoference and smartphone-related distress) were not significantly associated with mothers' contributions to the quality of feeding interactions. The amount of variance in the outcomes accounted for by the predictors (R²) was 24% for sensitivity to infant cues, 6% for responsiveness to infant distress, 16% for socioemotional growth fostering, and 9% for cognitive growth fostering.

3.2 Associations between objective and perceived smartphone use and infant clarity of cues and responsiveness to the mother

With respect to associations between objective and perceived smartphone use and infant contributions to the quality of feeding interactions (Table 4), our hypotheses were partially supported. We noted a positive association between smartphone-related empowerment and infant clarity of cues (β = 0.15, p = 0.02, hypothesis 2a) and the infant's responsiveness to the mother (β = 0.21, p < 0.01, hypothesis 2b). Also, after correcting for multiple testing, these associations continued to meet the threshold for statistical significance (Table 6). Thus, mothers who felt more empowered by their smartphone use also had infants who tended to be more clear in their cues and more responsive during feeding. In contrast, infant clarity and responsiveness to the mother were not associated with mothers' typical level of smartphone use while with their infants or negative perceptions about smartphone use. The amount of variance in the outcomes accounted for by the predictors was 11% for clarity of infant cues and 9% for infant responsiveness to mother.

3.3 Associations between objective and perceived smartphone use and mother-infant dyadic contingency and interaction quality

With respect to associations between objective and perceived smartphone use and mother-infant dyadic contingency and interaction quality (Table 5), our hypotheses were partially supported. We noted a positive association between smartphone-related empowerment and dyadic contingency (β = 0.19, p = 0.02, hypothesis 3a), but no statistically significant associations between dyadic contingency and other measures of typical smartphone use while with the infant or negative perceptions about smartphone use. Similarly, smartphone-related empowerment was positively associated with the overall quality of mother-infant interaction (β = 0.24, p = 0.001, hypothesis 3b) but was not significantly associated with other objective or subjective measures of smartphone use. After correcting for multiple testing, these associations continued to meet the threshold for statistical significance (Table 6). Thus, the greater the mother's perceptions of smartphone-related empowerment, the greater her dyadic contingency and interaction quality within her infant during feeding interactions. The amount of variance in the outcomes accounted for by the predictors was 13% for dyadic contingency and 15% for overall quality of the interaction.

4 Discussion

The present study builds on prior research by examining associations between maternal smartphone use and the quality of mother-infant interactions in naturalistic, everyday settings. We objectively measured how much mothers used their smartphones while with their infants in their daily life and examined mothers' subjective experiences—specifically, whether they perceived their smartphone use had produced technoference and whether they felt distressed or empowered by their smartphone use—to provide a more nuanced understanding of how smartphone use relates to early caregiving. Notably, we found that mothers who reported feeling empowered by their smartphone use were also those mothers who engaged in higher quality interactions with their infants. This was evident across several dimensions, including more frequent displays of socioemotional growth fostering behaviors, greater infant clarity of cues and responsiveness to the mother, better dyadic contingency, and higher overall interaction quality, and even after controlling for breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding, maternal age, education, ethnicity, parity, and depressive symptoms. In contrast, we did not find significant associations between interaction quality and the other indicators of smartphone use, such as typical level of smartphone use while with the infant, perceived technoference, or smartphone-related distress. These findings suggest that mothers' feelings about their smartphone use—particularly feelings of empowerment—may be more closely related to the quality of their interactions with their infants than the amount or perceived negative impacts of their smartphone use.

A strength of the present study was our use of both passive sensing and EMA methods to more reliably estimate mothers' smartphone use around their infants. Previous research illustrates that parents struggle to accurately self-report the amount of time they spend on devices (Yuan et al., 2019) or the amount of time they spend with their children (Fedick et al., 2005), especially when global recall methods are used. Combining objective measures of smartphone use with in-the-moment reports of time spent with infants allowed us to reduce bias in our estimates of mothers' smartphone use around their infants. Using these methods, we found that mothers used their smartphones during approximately one-third of the time they were with their infants. Our estimates are similar to the estimates reported in previous research (e.g., about 27% of time spent with infants) and reinforce the idea that smartphones are a common presence in families' day-to-day experiences (McDaniel et al., 2023, 2024; Tharner et al., 2022). We also found substantial variability in use across participants, ranging from 0.42% to 88.58% of infant time. This variability is consistent with prior findings that some parents never or rarely use their devices around their infants, while others engage with their devices frequently (Golen and Ventura, 2015b; McDaniel et al., 2024; Ventura and Teitelbaum, 2017).

However, both our findings and those of previous studies suggest that perceptions of smartphone use may be more important than duration of use for predicting maternal and infant outcomes. Indeed, we complemented our objective measures with momentary assessments of mothers' feelings about smartphone use, which allowed for a more nuanced understanding of how mothers' typical daily objective vs. subjective experiences of smartphone use may differentially relate to the quality of mother-infant interactions. Research on adults' smartphone use illustrates that subjective measures of problematic smartphone use are stronger predictors of mental health outcomes (e.g., impulsiveness, stress, anxiety, and depression) than objective measures (Hitcham et al., 2023; Shaw et al., 2020). Thus, adults' negative appraisals of their smartphone use may be more relevant to their mental health than their actual usage. Research with parents of older children that used objective measures of parent smartphone use and EMA approaches to assess parent perceptions has revealed parents' perceptions of technoference and displacement of family time with smartphone use are stronger predictors of parent experiences than actual use (Denecker et al., 2022). We similarly found that mothers' appraisals of their smartphone use were the only aspect of use that was associated with the quality of mother-infant interactions. However, a key difference between our findings and those of previous research is that mothers' positive appraisals of their smartphone use (i.e., their reports of feeling empowered by their use) were significantly associated with higher quality interactions with infants. In contrast, negative appraisals and measures of actual usage were not.

One possible explanation for the discrepancy between the findings of the present study and those of prior research is the tendency of earlier studies to exclusively focus subjective measures on adverse effects of smartphone use, such as technoference, problematic use, and smartphone addiction [e.g., (Komanchuk et al., 2023; Thomee, 2018)]. This narrow emphasis on potential adverse effects of smartphone use does not align with insights gleaned from qualitative studies, which consistently show that mothers acknowledge both detriments and benefits of their smartphone use. Specifically, mothers report that their smartphone use can lead to feelings of disconnection, stress, and guilt, but also recognize ways that smartphones may enhance their parenting by providing access to information, advice, and social support networks, and by helping them cope with the more challenging aspects of early caregiving, such as nighttime feedings (Baker and Yang, 2018; Coyne et al., 2022; Hood et al., 2022, 2024; Wolfers, 2021). These findings underscore the importance of incorporating both positive and negative perceptions of smartphone use in future research to more accurately capture its complex role in shaping parent wellbeing, caregiving quality, and infant development.

Feelings of empowerment related to smartphone use can foster a sense of confidence and competence in new mothers (Coyne et al., 2022; Hood et al., 2022, 2024; Wolfers, 2021), which may explain observed associations between smartphone-related empowerment and higher quality mother-infant interactions. Specifically, it is possible that empowering smartphone use helps mothers better understand and respond to their infant cues and understand the importance of socioemotional growth fostering behaviors during interactions with infants (e.g., smiling, talking, eye contact), all of which would promote greater infant responsiveness to the mother and better dyadic contingency (Ainsworth and Bell, 1974; Brazelton et al., 1975; Tronick et al., 1977). However, given the correlational nature of the present study, several other mechanisms may explain the observed association between smartphone-related empowerment and higher quality mother-infant interactions. For example, infant responsiveness during social interactions, characterized by more smiling, gazing, and vocalizations toward the mother, helps mothers feel more connected to and rewarded by their infant (Feldman, 2012; Juffer et al., 2008). This, in turn, promotes sensitivity to infant cues and warm responses to the infant, such as reciprocal smiling, eye contact, and behavioral synchrony (Feldman, 2012). Over time, high-quality mother-infant interactions promote mothers' emotional wellbeing and parenting confidence (Belsky, 1984; King et al., 2015), which may lead mothers to more positively appraise other aspects of their daily rhythms, such as the ways they integrate their smartphones into their early caregiving routines.

It is also possible that a similar constellation of underlying factors (e.g., family structure, cultural beliefs, and broader parenting practices and styles) promotes greater overall quality of interactions, dyadic contingency, attentiveness to promoting their infant's socioemotional growth, and use of smartphones in ways that feel empowering. The possibility that mothers' appraisals of their smartphone use are part of a broader pattern of responsive parenting practices is supported by prior research illustrating that the ways that mothers use technology and digital media during interactions with their infants are associated with global measures of feeding practices (e.g., lack of involvement in feeding), sensitivity and responsiveness to children's feeding and social cues, and engagement in joint attention with their child (Golen and Ventura, 2015a,b; Ochoa et al., 2021; Tharner et al., 2022; Vanden Abeele et al., 2020; Ventura et al., 2023, 2020; Ventura and Teitelbaum, 2017; Vik et al., 2021). Thus, as posited by Wolfers and colleagues' (2020) expression vs. change hypotheses, smartphone use may be an expression of broader parenting practices and styles rather than a factor that changes parenting practices and styles. Additional mixed methods research is needed to better understand intersections between smartphone use timing and duration, perceptions, and content (e.g., engagement with social media vs. information seeking). This research may elucidate why mothers feel empowered vs. distressed about their use and the mechanisms underlying associations between these appraisals and mother-infant interaction quality. In particular, assessing whether mothers' use aligns with their attitudes and expectations regarding their technology use may help identify when mothers feel empowered vs. distressed by their smartphone use, perceptions that may have greater impacts on parent and family outcomes than actual smartphone use (Hiniker et al., 2015; Hitcham et al., 2023; Wolfers et al., 2023).

Although our primary findings highlight the importance of mothers' positive appraisals of smartphone use, it is also notable that we found no significant associations between mother-infant interaction quality and either objective measures of typical level of smartphone use around the infant or subjective reports of technoference and smartphone-related distress. One possible interpretation of these findings is that the typical duration of smartphone use and perceived disruptions are not, in and of themselves, significant predictors of caregiving quality during early infancy. Self-reported feelings of technoference or distress may not always reflect actual disruption in mother-infant interactions, particularly when mothers use their devices for coping, social support, or information seeking. Moreover, it is possible that disruptions to parenting are isolated instances that lead to reduced parent-child interaction quality in the moment, but not during future interactions. To be clear, within the present study, we did not objectively measure smartphone use during the feeding observation but instead measured mothers' typical smartphone use patterns during their daily lives with their infants. Thus, our results do not negate the observational and experimental literature that shows changes in parenting behavior during moments when smartphone use occurs (Abels and Vanden Abeele, 2018; Bury et al., 2020; Golen and Ventura, 2015a; Hiniker et al., 2015; Krapf-Bar et al., 2022; Mason et al., 2024; Nomkin and Gordon, 2021; Ochoa et al., 2021; Porter et al., 2024; Vanden Abeele et al., 2020; Ventura et al., 2019; Wolfers et al., 2020). Instead, these methodological discrepancies may explain differences between our results and results of prior observational and experimental studies in which smartphone use and interaction quality were measured simultaneously. Thus, although prior research suggests smartphone use may cause in-the-moment distractions during parenting, our results suggest that further exploration of the potential empowering effects of smartphone use on parenting is warranted.

Of note, depressive symptoms were significantly and positively correlated with both smartphone-related distress and smartphone-related empowerment in that greater experiences with depressive symptoms related to greater smartphone-related distress and empowerment. The association with typical level of objective smartphone use while with the infant was of a similar magnitude to these other associations, although not significant. Prior research has consistently reported associations between depressive symptoms and both objective and subjective measures of smartphone use, including heavy smartphone use during parenting (McDaniel et al., 2024), greater perceptions of technoference (McDaniel, 2021; Newsham et al., 2020), higher internet addiction test scores (Dennis et al., 2022), and greater levels of problematic smartphone use (Newsham et al., 2020; Shawcroft et al., 2025) and smartphone addiction (Wade-Bohleber et al., 2024). This may indicate that mothers who are depressed tend to turn to their smartphones more, likely seeking support at times and mood regulation at other times [as has been found in prior qualitative work, e.g., (Radesky et al., 2016; Torres et al., 2021; Wolfers, 2021)]. Consequently, mothers may then find this use both distressing and empowering. The positive relations between smartphone use-related empowerment with both depression and mother-infant interaction quality indicators could suggest that, in some cases, smartphone use compensates for circumstances that are usually indicative of lower mother-infant interaction quality (i.e., when mothers are depressed). However, such compensatory functions need a more substantial test in future research.

Several limitations of the present study should be noted. First, although our use of passive sensing and EMA methods increased the ecological validity and precision of our estimates, continuous daily data were averaged to produce overall estimates and all observational data were collected during a single point in time, when infants were approximately 2 m old. As such, our cross-sectional analysis precludes any causal inferences about the directionality of the associations observed. It remains unclear whether feelings of empowerment lead to higher-quality interactions or whether mothers who are already engaging in high-quality interactions are more likely also to feel empowered by their smartphone use. Second, while our observational measure of mother-infant interaction quality captured nuanced caregiving behaviors in a naturalistic home setting, the feeding context may not fully represent the broader spectrum of caregiving interactions that occur throughout the day. In addition, our focus on mothers allowed us to examine associations in a primary caregiving context but limits the generalizability of findings. Fathers and other caregivers are increasingly involved in infant feeding and care, and future research should examine whether the observed associations differ across caregiver roles and sex. Third, although we observed substantial variability in mothers' smartphone use, our sample was relatively homogeneous in terms of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, limiting the generalizability of findings to more diverse populations. Fourth, data loss due to technical issues with passive sensing apps and video recording quality may have introduced some degree of bias. However, these problems were not substantial, and these issues are difficult to avoid when collecting data within the less controlled conditions of participants' everyday lives and naturalistic settings. Additionally, the observed effects of the smartphone-related variables were small, indicating that the sample size of our current study (n = 147) may have limited the possibility of detecting small effects. Future studies with larger sample sizes would help to validate the current results. Finally, while our measures of smartphone-related distress and empowerment were developed based on prior research, they are novel and warrant validation in future studies. We also kept those measures very brief, as is common within EMA designs, to reduce participant burnout and burden, but, as a result, they may not represent all the ways mothers feel distressed or empowered by their smartphone use.

To address these limitations and build upon study findings, longitudinal research is needed to examine how mothers' subjective experiences of smartphone use, especially feelings of empowerment or distress, evolve over time and relate to children's developmental outcomes beyond infancy. Future work should also explore the content and context of smartphone use (e.g., passive scrolling vs. active information seeking; use during caregiving vs. downtime) to better understand which patterns of use support or undermine parenting. Incorporating mixed-methods approaches, including qualitative interviews, may further illuminate the personal and cultural factors that shape mothers' appraisals of their smartphone use. From a practical standpoint, our research supports the idea that interventions aimed at improving parenting in the digital age should move beyond simple messages to “put the phone away” [e.g., (McDaniel, 2020b)]. Instead, clinicians and parenting educators might focus on helping mothers reflect on how their smartphone use aligns with their parenting values, supports their wellbeing, and fits within the rhythms of early caregiving (McDaniel, 2020b). Further research is needed to understand whether encouraging intentional, self-affirming smartphone use, rather than promoting guilt or restriction related to smartphone use, may better support responsive parenting and parent-infant connection in a technology-saturated world.

In conclusion, this study contributes to the growing body of literature examining the role of smartphone use in early parenting by highlighting the importance of mothers' subjective experiences- particularly feelings of empowerment-as predictors of interaction quality with their infants. By incorporating both objective and perceptual measures of smartphone use and observing mother-infant interactions in everyday home environments, we provide a more nuanced understanding of how technology is integrated into modern caregiving routines. Our findings suggest that it may not be the quantity of smartphone use that matters most, but rather, how mothers feel about their use. Mothers who feel that their smartphone use supports their wellbeing and parenting may be more engaged and emotionally available during interactions with their infants. These insights underscore the need for future research and clinical guidance to move beyond simplistic narratives of screen time as inherently harmful and instead consider the broader context, motivations, and appraisals of technology use in early parenthood.

Data availability statement

The de-identified data may be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author, and a data sharing agreement may be required.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation Institutional Review Board and California Polytechnic State University Institutional Review Board. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation in this study was provided by the participant, for themselves, and by the child participants' legal guardian.

Author contributions

AV: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. LW: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. SC: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. RP: Investigation, Project administration, Writing – review & editing. SU: Data curation, Investigation, Writing – review & editing. KC: Data curation, Investigation, Writing – review & editing. AS: Data curation, Software, Validation, Writing – review & editing. AG: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – review & editing. BM: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. The research reported in this publication was supported by the Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development Inc. under Award Number CS-IRGP-002, a Cal Poly Teacher-Scholar Mini-Grant, and the William and Linda Frost Fund in the Cal Poly Bailey College of Science & Mathematics. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Children and Screens, Parkview Health, Cal Poly, or any other affiliation.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants, research study team, and research assistants who made this research possible.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdpys.2025.1686250/full#supplementary-material

Footnotes

1. ^Although 153 mothers completed the remote feeding observation, 6 mothers were excluded for having a high amount of missing data for the behaviors that could not be coded due to video or audio quality issues.

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