Mahmut Sami Gürdal

Why do some children seem more drawn to media than others, and what shapes those differences?

This question sits at the center of my research. I am a Ph.D. candidate in Human Development at Virginia Tech, where I study children's media use as a window into individual differences in temperament, development, and family environments.

Much of my work focuses on early childhood. I am particularly interested in how child temperament shapes patterns of media engagement and vulnerability to problematic media use. At the same time, I examine environmental influences, especially how parental behaviors — such as emotion regulation — help shape children's media experiences. In my work, I consider multiple dimensions of media use, including media interactivity. Although my work centers primarily on early childhood, I also conduct research on media use during adolescence.

Beyond media, I am interested in how temperament relates not only to media use, but also to children's developmental outcomes, including social competence and learning-related behaviors.

I seek to approach these questions through multiple methodological perspectives, integrating person-centered approaches, meta-analytic methods, and machine learning to better capture complexity in developmental processes.

I am currently a Graduate Research Assistant in the Cognitive Developmental Science (CoDeS) Lab at Virginia Tech and expect to complete my Ph.D. in May 2027.