A new study shows there is a relationship between children's development and the amount of time they spend using screen devices, and children who spend more time on these devices perform worse in learning, speech, and emotion regulation.
Sherry Medigan, the study's lead author and a professor of psychology at the University of Calgary in Canada, whose work was published in JAMA Pediatrics, told CNN on Tuesday that they reviewed decades of research on the impact of screen time on children's development and found that longer screen time overall was associated with poorer outcomes across several areas of child development, including how they think, learn, talk, behave, and regulate emotions.
Of course, most of these associations, like many other factors related to child development, were relatively small, but small does not mean unimportant-especially for a factor like screen time that is present in almost every child's life today.
Medigan added that newer studies, compared with older ones, have provided evidence of a stronger link between screen time duration and child development. According to her, one possible explanation is that the way screens are used has changed: "Twenty years ago, a child might spend an hour watching a TV program. Today, devices are everywhere. These devices are interactive and engaging and respond to each person according to their characteristics. So we not only need to better understand how children interact with technology, but also how technology interacts with children."
Not everything is negative
Medigan went on to note that parents should not conclude after reading this study that "screens are entirely harmful for children," but should pay attention to how they are used.
She said: "Technology is an important part of children's lives and digital technologies can be excellent tools to support their learning, creativity, and communication. However, these technologies can displace things that children truly need for growth and flourishing; things like sleep, physical activity, human connection, learning, and play."
To start, parents can, rather than completely abandoning these devices, identify situations or time periods when screen use interferes with meeting children's needs. For many families, a suitable starting point is not using devices during dinner or having a set time each day when everyone puts devices aside and connects with one another.
Governments also have a role
Medigan emphasized that parents should not be left alone to manage children's screen time and that governments also have a role to play.
She said: "Governments should treat children's screen use the same way they treat other factors known to be related to children's health and wellbeing; including providing screen use guidance to families, education, research, and ensuring children are protected from online harms. Such actions by governments send the message to parents, schools, and technology companies that screen use is an issue that should be taken seriously."
Next, Medigan and her research colleagues will examine which children are most affected by different digital experiences and why. Medigan explained: "Because our findings are correlational, they do not prove that screens cause these developmental outcomes in children. That means while screen use may play a role in producing problems, it is also possible that children who face difficulties are more likely to turn to screens. Therefore, clarifying the direction of these relationships is one of the important avenues for future research."
Tatiana Iniguez Brushe, a senior lecturer in sociology in Spain, who did not participate in this study, said the "paper is methodologically very robust" and relies on a "very large" sample. In a comment released via the Science Media Centre, she said: "The main findings confirm what research has shown for years and help place the current moral panic in the media and society about youth and screens in a more realistic framework: there is a relationship between screen time duration and weaker indicators of mental health and academic performance, but this association is very small."
Esther van Sluys, a professor of behavioural epidemiology in the UK, who also did not participate in this study, said "this is a high-quality study," but has caveats. "This research cannot draw firm conclusions about specific types of screen use such as social media use or video gaming, because there were not enough data to examine these issues. Therefore we should be cautious in interpreting these results with respect to young people's current screen use habits."