There are growing concerns that mothers’ use of smartphones and digital practices interfere with and disrupt social interaction, harming mother-infant relationships. Their digital practices, however, particularly the creation and sharing of “shareables” (photos, videos, voice notes), play an important role in maintaining family relationships and fulfilling relational obligations. This article presents a fine-grained analysis of two mothers’ self-recorded interactions with their infants at home as they engage in digital media making. By drawing on the methodologies of Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (EMCA), we show how infants are co-participants in the production of shareable content. This approach highlights the interactional features of shareables as socially accomplished and situated practices. Findings challenge assumptions that smartphone use is inherently disruptive, to instead reveal how digital media making is a joint activity. The complex contextual factors that shape mothers’ use of digital technologies offer insights and nuanced understandings of digital mothering practices within digitally mediated interactional spaces.
Amery et al. (Mon,) studied this question.