Just 2 Hours of Screen Time Can Slow Toddlers’ Development
By Movieguide® Contributor
Excessive screen time for young children is bad news for their development.
“Given the ubiquity of screen media in children’s daily lives and the fact that usage is easily modifiable, the public health impacts are likely to be significant,” a peer-reviewed study by the University of Canterbury in New Zealand explained.
The study found that more than 90 minutes of screen time per day for children under the age of 2 can slow their language, communication, writing, numeracy and letter development skills later in life.
In contrast, children who spent less than one hour daily on screens had better language and communication skills.
Megan Gath, one of the researchers on the project, said, “We found a linear relationship, so the more screen time they were exposed to, the worse they fared in terms of outcomes, and that was most evident at the highest levels of screen exposure.”
READ MORE: SET YOUR CHILD UP FOR SUCCESS WITH THESE SCREEN TIME FACTS
This explains why teachers are seeing a decrease in education and social skills among children.
“Screen time during early childhood is predictive of the skills that children have on arrival to school, and the dramatic rise in screen use over recent years may partially explain why school readiness has been declining over recent years,” the researchers explained.
The World Health Organization (WHO) found that “higher levels of screen time in young children are associated with higher levels of adiposity, more sleep problems and lower scores on measures of psychosocial health, cognitive development and motor development (McNeill, 2019, Li, 2020, Poitras, 2017), highlighting the need to intervene at an early age.”
Because of that, the WHO recommends “no screen time for infants and toddlers up to age 2 years and<1 hour a day for children aged 2–4 years.”
The Mayo Clinic elaborated: “The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages media use, except for video chatting, by children younger than 18 months. If you introduce digital media to children ages 18 to 24 months, make sure it’s high quality and avoid solo media use. For children ages 2 to 5, limit screen time to one hour a day of high-quality programming.”
READ MORE: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH SCREEN TIME IS APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR CHILD?
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