Limiting the time spent by children in front of a smartphone, tablet or computer screen would promote their intellectual capacities. Conversely, a screen overdose would interfere with their cognitive development. In a study published on September 26 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Canadian researchers estimate the limit beyond which screens would be harmfulfor children’s mental skills. Answer: beyond two hours, screens would represent a risk. 4,500 American children between the ages of eight and eleven took questionnaires to find out about their sleep habits, physical activity, and screen time. The volunteers also took a cognitive skills test.
The test results suggest a virtuous relationship between sleep, cognitive performance and low screen exposure: children who spent less than two hours of screen time had good sleep (they slept between nine and eleven hours), practiced at least one hour of physical activity per day. Lower screen power (less than two hours) was also associated with better performance on cognitive tests. For these children, the results of these tests were about 4% higher than the group average.
In contrast, among screen “bulimics” (more than two hours a day), intellectual skills such as working memory, processing speed, levels of attention and language skillsturned out to be more mediocre.
These observation-based results suggest that every minute a child spends on a screen is a minute less sleep or time spent on cognitively or physically stimulating activities.
Limit the time spent in front of the screen for the development of the child
“We found that more than two hours of screen time in children was associated with poorer cognitive development. More research on the links between screen time and cognition is now needed, including including studying the effect of different types of screen time, whether the content is educational or entertaining, requires concentration or involves multitasking, “says Dr. Jeremy Walsh of the University of Ottawa at Telegraph. “Based on our findings, pediatricians, the parents, educators and policymakers should promote limitation of screen time and prioritize healthy sleep patterns throughout childhood and adolescence, ”he adds.
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