A Bermudian academic living in the United States has won a literary award for her research book on the effects of digital media on a child’s growth.

Technology’s Child: Digital Media’s Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up, by Katie Davis, was named the Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Book of the Year Awards’ gold winner in its science and technology category.

The book-sharing organisation announced the selections for their 2023 awards in June this year.

Technology’s Child explores the role technology can play in a person’s development from early childhood to early adulthood.

Dr Davis, an associate professor at the University of Washington and director of the university’s Digital Youth Lab, outlined the complicated relationship between a child, technology, society and culture in her book.

Technology’s Child explains how a child’s ability to start and end their relationship with digital media on their own terms aids healthy development, especially when surrounded by a supportive community.

Dr Davis said in her foreword: “Children’s experiences with technology – their ‘screen time’ and digital social relationships – have become an inescapable aspect of growing up.

“This book, for the first time, identifies the qualitative distinctions between different ages and stages of this engagement and offers invaluable guidance for parents and teachers navigating the digital landscape and for technology designers charting the way.”

Dr Davis was recently offered a $75,000 research grant to look at students’ opinions on the use of artificial intelligence in schools.

Foreword Reviews helps to advertise independently published books to libraries and bookstores.

Its annual INDIES Book of the Year Awards separate its yearly entrants into 55 categories based on genre and puts them through a rigorous selection process.

The company’s editors select 12 finalists for each genre, which are then sent to librarians and booksellers to select a gold, silver and bronze winner, as well as an honourable mention.

Foreword editors also pick their Editor’s Choice winners in fiction and non-fiction categories, which each win $1,500, and names an Indie Publisher of the Year.

A spokesman for Foreword said this year’s awards received more than 2,400 entries, which “showcased the remarkable talent and diversity of the independent publishing industry”.