Children between 2 and 5 years of age who spend more time on a screen of a tablet, computer or television score worse on development tests.
The University of Calgary concludes after a study of 2,441 children aged between 24 and 60 months.
During the multi-year study, the mothers of the children were asked to indicate how many hours per week the children spent on a screen. This involved everything from TVs to tablets and computers.
On average, the children watched a screen for 2.4 hours a day for 24 months, 36 hours 3.6 hours a day and 60 months 1.6 hours a day. According to the researchers, the decrease in screen time at 60 months is probably due to the start of the first school year if the child is 4 years old. Children then suddenly have less time to look at a screen.
Screen time at the expense of developing basic skills
According to the researchers, there is a clear link between more screening time at 24 months and a worse score decreased at the age of 36 months. The same applies to the influence of more screen time at 36 months and poorer performance at 60 months.
It is important that the higher the measured screen time, the worse the score was, but a bad score did not always mean that a child had looked at a screen a lot. That fact speaks for the hypothesis that more screen time leads to lower scores in plats of another unknown factor.
According to the researchers, more screen time is at the expense of the development of social skills, language and speech, movement and other basic subjects. Yet there is no hard time limit to indicate above which screen time is disadvantageous. However, interactive programs that ask children to move or respond may be less detrimental to development.
