Researchers, parents, and policymakers from previous generations have recently expressed concern about the inevitable exposure of youngsters to digital media and its potentially detrimental effects on their development. Private speech is the overt audible self-talk people produce when engaged with challenging problem-solving tasks and is believed to aid in second language acquisition as reported (Vygotsky in Thought and language, MIT Press, 1962); (Winsler in Private Speech, Executive Functioning, and the Development of Verbal Self-Regulation, 2009). This qualitative case study explored private speech production in three young adolescents (two 11-year-olds and one 10-year-old) while completing an English as a foreign language task (Bingo! game) individually and collaboratively in physical and digital modes. Patterns of participants’ private speech markers emerged from a thematic analysis of the transcribed oral interactions during eight sessions. The frequency of occurrence of the participants’ private speech markers was reported and interpreted based on the emergent typology to compare collaborative and individual task completion in physical and digital modes. Regardless of the individual or collaborative nature of the task, private speech use decreased during the digital version of the game. However, collaborative tasks evoked more private speech from the participants regardless of modality. The findings of the study suggest digital media usage is likely to hinder private speech production for self-regulatory purposes in young adolescents, even in collaboration with peers.

前几代人的研究人员、父母和政策制定者最近对青少年不可避免地接触数字媒体及其对他们的发展可能产生的不利影响表示担忧。私人言语是人们在从事具有挑战性的问题解决任务时产生的公开的可听见的自言自语，据报道被认为有助于第二语言的习得（Vygotsky in Thought and language，MIT Press，1962）；（温斯勒在《私人演讲、行政职能和言语自我调节的发展》中，2009 年）。这项定性案例研究探讨了三名青少年（两名 11 岁和一名 10 岁）在以物理和数字模式单独和协作完成英语作为外语任务（宾果！游戏）时的私人言语表达。参与者私人言语标记的模式是通过对八次会议期间转录的口头互动进行的主题分析得出的。根据新兴类型学报告和解释参与者私人言语标记的出现频率，以比较物理和数字模式下的协作和个人任务完成情况。无论任务的性质是个人还是协作，在游戏的数字版本中，私人言语的使用都会减少。然而，无论形式如何，协作任务都会引发参与者更多的私人演讲。研究结果表明，数字媒体的使用可能会阻碍青少年出于自我监管目的而进行的私人言语表达，即使是与同龄人合作也是如此。