Research Findings: There are heated debates about the benefits and risks of using digital devices in the early years. This study explored the latent profiles and the associated predictors of digital literacy and multimodal practices in Chinese children to understand how children use and interact with digital devices at home. A total of 1953 parents were recruited from a province in central China and surveyed about their children’s digital literacy and multimodal practices. The results indicated that: (1) all the children had access to a variety of digital technologies at home, with the most common digital practices being watching TV and using smartphones; (2) three latent classes of digital families were yielded: Low-level Profile (62.9% of the sample), Middle-level Profile (36.3%), and High-Level Profile (0.8%); and (3) child age, location and family annual income, home digital resources, parental beliefs, and parental mediation could significantly predict young children’s digital literacy and their multimodal practice at home, respectively. Practice or Policy: The findings imply that there are remarkable within-group differences in early digital literacy and multimodal practices, primarily caused by family SES and parental factors. More attention should be paid to low SES families and parental education to narrow the digital divide in Chinese children.

The COVID-19 lockdowns had forced young children to take digital preschooling and their parents to practize digital parenting. This study explored how Chinese parents viewed and mediated early digital use during the lockdowns. A total of 2491 parents were recruited nationally and surveyed online in late 2020. The results indicated that: (1) Chinese parents held mixed views of early digital use with some being positive (25.09%), and negative (35.13%), and balanced or ambivalent (32.64%); (2) they were concerned about the negative impact on early learning and development even though the lockdown has led to an inevitable surge in digital use; and (3) they mainly perceived parental roles as guides (35.84%) and supervisors (32.04%) and adopted four digital parenting approaches: supervision, active mediation, restrictive mediation, and co-use or co-view. The findings imply that Chinese parents were not ready to cope with the challenges caused by early digital use.