Should parents limit screen time for young children?
19 April, 2020
Researchers from the University of California, Davis, advise that parents delay introducing their preschool children to mobile screens, such as for example smartphones and tablets.
Screens are everywhere in our daily lives. As adults, we are constantly switching between working on a computer, checking our phones, watching TV at night - sometimes even playing on a tablet concurrently.
Children are picking right up on this behavior, with screen time among children increasing. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that children aged 8-10 spend, typically, 6 hours each day before a screen. At ages 11-14, this increases to nearly 9 hours a day.
A fresh study from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) suggests that screens may have critical effects on a child’s development when they begin using them at an early age.
The researchers have published their findings in JAMA Pediatrics.
Self-regulation is key
The researchers passed out flyers to parents at preschools and community events. They recruited 73 children aged between 32 and 47 months and analyzed the info of 56 of these.
The researchers conducted the analysis over two-and-a-half-years, between July 2016 and January 2019.
During this time, the children attended the campus at UC Davis for 90-minute sessions, where the researchers assessed their ability to ‘self-regulate.’ This implies they viewed their capability to plan, control, and monitor their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Many persons often associate these important skills with later academic and social abilities, physical and mental well-being, and income.
The researchers asked the kids to complete some tasks, which included walking slowly along a line on to the floor and taking turns with the researcher to create a tower out of blocks.
The researchers also completed a type of delayed gratification test where they asked the kids never to open a gift as the researcher left the room for a brief period. This test, pioneered in the 1970s, indicated that children who could wait longer for a reward tended to have better outcomes in later life.
Early screen time could harm development
The researchers compared the results from these tasks with information from the parents about screen time. The info included the age of which the kids first saw a screen and how long they spent per week on a device.
The results showed that children who commenced using any screen media (including television, computers, smartphones, and tablets) earlier in life had lower self-regulation abilities.
The results showed that was also true of those who currently used cellular devices (smartphones or tablets or both) a lot more than others in the cohort.
Screen time measures, however, didn't predict the parents’ perceptions of their child’s self-regulation.
Due to their findings and as a precautionary measure, the researchers recommend that parents limit the volume of time preschool children use mobile devices.
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com