Gadgets as a Second Caregiver: Parental Functional Dependence, Technoference, and Early Childhood Development in Dual-Career Families

Research on young children's screen use has focused on how long children use devices, while far less is known about which caregiving functions parents delegate to them. This study introduced and examined parental functional dependence, the repeated reliance on gadgets to perform caregiving functions, in dual-career families. An exploratory qualitative case study was conducted with two dual-career Muslim families of children aged five to six years attending an Islamic preschool in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Data from parent interviews, classroom observation, and psychologist assessment were analysed thematically. Children used gadgets for one to three hours daily, mainly on workdays with minimal co-use. Parents cited limited time, emotional exhaustion, perceived educational value, and immediate calming, and one family cited guilt. Concentration and emotion regulation were the most affected domains, whereas visual-symbolic recognition was adequate. The study proposed five caregiving functions of gadgets, an aid–complement–substitute spectrum, a reinforcement cycle, five testable propositions, and candidate indicators for measurement. The findings indicated that digital parenting interventions should target the work–family conditions and caregiving functions behind device use, not screen duration alone.