
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SCREEN TIME AND DEVELOPMENT
Written by Caroline Meyer
There has been quite a bit of research over the years pertaining to child development and the amount of time spent in front of a screen. Screen time before the age of 3 years old showed a correlation with many missed early childhood development milestones when they were assessed at the age of 5.
Key areas that had noticeable developmental delays included: motor skills, communication, social skills and problem-solving. In some studies, it is quite clear that one of the main reasons for the developmental milestones being missed was directly related to long periods spent in front of a screen. While this is not definitive, it does show that screen time should be limited and any time spent in front of a screen should be with a caregiver and supervised or engaged with together.
While it is difficult to manage many other factors that can be involved in childhood developmental delays such as poverty, managing screen time is something most parents can do. This allows parents to also spend more time interacting with their children, which shows improvements in learning and hitting the milestones later on.
Many children show a deficit in developmental areas such as motor skills, communication, language and socioemotional health by the time they start school. Changing the outlook on screen time can result in a change to this trend. If parents understand how detrimental it is to use technology as a babysitter or pacifier for their children, the more they might look at other options that can improve long term outcomes.
A long-term study measured screen time as the ages of 2, 3 and 5 years. Childhood development outcomes were also assessed at these ages by the parents and study doctors. A pattern emerged that could predict the outcome at 3 years and 5 years from looking at the screen time for previous periods. This pattern made it obvious that extensive screen time resulted in greater delays as the children got older. The study included an assessment at two of simple word combinations in groups of two or three such as “cat gone now”. At age five, they would need to be able to put at least 4 or 5 words into a sentence. Other skills were also tested at 2, 3 and 5. While the study could not definitively prove causation, the correlation was very strong. To prove causation would require a randomized controlled trial which is not ethical to do on children as large groups would need to be exposed to different amounts of screen time over a period of time. Having a good idea that this is detrimental to their development, this type of study cannot be done in an ethical way. The closest that studies of this type can get is to show the probability of screen time being a factor in slower development in small children. Each child in the study showed distinct underachievement when exposed to larger amount of screen time than those that weren’t. While not all factors were the same, there was a pattern when looking at outcomes after different levels of screen time. Other factors such as socioeconomic group was not taken into account, nor factors such as lack of sibling, single parent households etc.
Many studies in the past focused on-screen time and developmental outcomes at a certain point in time. This could not be seen as being conclusive at all. These studies could not show whether the developmental delays were in place before the excessive screen time or developed afterwards (or as a result of). Research done over longer periods that assessed children at different levels and checked the screen time patterns were then able to predict further developmental delays based on the amount of time spent in front of a screen. It was also noted that children that were already experiencing developmental delays are often expected to spend even more time in front of a screen to “learn”, in an effort to boost them to reach their milestones. While many other factors can also hinder children from reaching their developmental milestones such as socioeconomic factors, parenting, physical activity and sleep, excessive screen time is most assuredly a factor in this area as well.
The impact further down the line for these children is yet to be assessed. While there is some indication that the right kind of screen time in later development can assist children in reaching milestones and developing independence, in early childhood, this appears to be far more a negative than a positive influence. So how much screen time is too much? Children in industrialised countries seem to be more at risk than those in developing countries where technology may not always be available in many households. The study looked at children in countries where technology is readily available and the amount of time differed from 2 hours to 4 hours per day approximately.
Children should not spend more than an hour a day in front of the screen and should be watching high-quality programming or educational shows. Children in the study that showed negative effects were watching a screen for 2.4 hours at 24 months, 3.6 hours at 36 months and 1.6 hours at 60 months on average. The quality of what was being watched was difficult to determine as screen time was over a wide variety of devices.
Screen time spent without input from caregivers has little to no benefit for children under 30 months. They cannot apply what they see on screen to real life. Where screen time was shared with caregivers, there was more interaction and the little ones were engaged in conversation and this can improve language development. Children are also able to learn from the experiences when a parent or caregiver watches with them as this is a very different experience to mindlessly watching on their own.
Children from birth to five years old are at the most risk as this is when most of childhood development happens. While some of the digital media can be stimulating and fun for little ones, it does appear to interfere with them reaching their developmental milestones. Limiting screen time at a young age seems like something that any parent can do to try and help their children reach their full potential.