After two years of health crisis, more than half of children and their parents have significantly increased their time in front of screens.
And according to a guide published by the National Union of Family Associations and downloadable from the site of Public Health France, there should be no screen before the age of 3, and no video games before the age of 6. Last December, moreover, a column entitled “Children’s overexposure to screens could be the evil of the century“, was published in Le Monde. In short, the question of children’s exposure to screens perpetually feeds the concerns of parents.
Scientists have just published a new report, based on the study of 87 surveys about screens, including 159,425 children under 12 years old. Their conclusion published in the JAMA Psychiatry journal temper the panic around this subject.
- What to take away from this study? The idea is not to say that spending a lot of time on screens for children is not bad for them. But rather to question the magnitude of the impact. Screens are often described as a danger for learning, food and of course sleep… For the authors of this study, the harmful effect of screens exists but is weaker than feared.
Children and screens: what if the problem was elsewhere?
Two types of behavioral disorders were taken into account: aggressive behavior, attention deficit, hyperactivity, but also depressive or anxious symptoms in children under 12 years old.
They explain that of all the studies published on the issue, those that sound the most alarm bells have methodological flaws that make them less reliable. After observing the results of these 87 reports, they point out that the link established between behavioral problems in children and screens is rather “slight”.
In addition, they wondered about the origin of the problem in children who testify to disorders. Where does it really come from? Too much screen consumption, or dysfunctional family situations (with the collateral effect of children watching more screens than elsewhere). According to them, it is difficult to base everything on television.
Source : Association of Screen Time With Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Children 12 Years or Younger, JAMA Psychiatry, March 16, 2022.
Read also:
- Children and screens? Not without support
- We do not eat in front of the TV: it prevents children from talking
