Screen time can affect children’s self-regulation abilities

It is not good for screens to stay too long in front of a screen. A new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis (USA) has found that preschoolers’ screen time should be postponed because it affects their skills needed to plan, control and monitor their thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

This study calls on parents to delay the introduction of televisions, mobile phones and tablets to young children. The research that was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics was conducted over a period of two and a half years during which researchers studied the behavior and ability of young children to plan and self-regulate. A total of 56 children aged 32 to 47 months and their parents were interviewed during the research, during which the team observed children’s self-regulation skills, or the skills needed to plan, control and monitor their thoughts. , feelings and behaviors. According to the researchers, young children’s self-regulation abilities predict their academic success, social functioning, physical and mental health, income and crime.

Time spent in front of screens alters their self-regulation abilities

It was found that young children exposed to a screen for a long time had weaker self-regulation abilities. These include children who started handling screens at an early age or who currently use devices such as televisions, computers, smartphones and tablets.

According to the study’s lead author, Amanda C. Lawrence, a doctoral candidate with the Human Development Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis, “young children are often exposed to a significant amount of screen media. Although consuming moderate amounts of high-quality children’s media has been shown to have a positive influence on development, current findings support limiting children’s use of mobile devices..”

Co-authors Daniel Ewon Choe, an assistant professor of human development and family studies, and Madhuri S. Narayan, who was an undergraduate student when he worked on the research, conducted a thorough examination of the children before they were born. express other reasons for the cautious use of mobile devices by young children.

Devices also limit interaction time

For Amanda C. Lawrence, “the portable nature of mobile devices allows them to be used anywhere, such as while waiting for an appointment or waiting in line at the grocery store. Screen use could therefore interfere with sensitive and responsive interactions with parents or with the practice of self-gratifying behaviors that promote optimal development..”

The team started by distributing flyers to children in preschools and at community events. She collected the data from July 1, 2016 to January 11, 2019. During the research, the children also visited the on-campus research lab for a 90-minute interaction during which they were asked to complete 10 tasks to assess their ability to self-regulate. The researchers asked the children to walk slowly in a line, take turns building a tower of blocks, and wait as long as possible to unwrap the presents while the researcher briefly left the room.

Amanda C. Lawrence has designed a unique survey to record children’s screen time by asking parents certain questions. The team used this information to calculate the children’s reported age when they first used the screen and the average time spent per week on each device.

While conforming to the data, the researchers also observed substantial variation in the time children spent with screen-based devices in the average week of this community sample, which was 0-68 hours per week for traditional devices (television , computers) and from 0 to 14 hours per week for mobile devices (tablets, smartphones).

Although screen time was not related to family income in this sample, the research team found that children who use mobile devices at an early age come from high-income households. The child’s ethnicity had no impact on screen time.

According to Amanda C. Lawrance, the study was an attempt to understand how screen time in early childhood might affect child development. According to her, more studies of the effects of children’s media device use over multiple years with more children and parents are needed to better understand the problem at hand.