The prolonged and daily use of touch screens has an effect on the development of the attention of the youngest. Compared to children who are not in contact with these screens, their attention and focusing skills are not as developed.
- Children who are used to being in front of touch screens for a long time have reduced attention spans
- The rapid switching from one subject to another that these screens allow makes it more difficult to stay focused on a task.
It’s a common practice among young parents to distract children: giving them access to a touch screen. Whether watching series, cartoons or playing games, many parents leave the youngest in contact with these digital tools. Still, it could be bad for the development of their attentiveness. In a study published on January 26, 2021 in the journal Scientific reports, researchers from King’s College London and the universities of Bath and Birkbeck (UK) warn of the risks this entails in toddlers. Indeed, children who use touch screens for a long time and on a daily basis look at objects more quickly when they appear and are less able to resist distraction than children who use the touch screen little or not at all.
To demonstrate this, the researchers recruited 12-month-old infants who had varying levels of touchscreen use. For this study, which lasted two and a half years, the researchers tested the children at the ages of 12 months, 18 months and three and a half. During each visit, the toddlers participated in computer tasks with an eye-tracker, a camera capable of following the movement of their eyes, in order to measure their attention. Researchers make objects appear in different places on the screen while measuring the speed at which children look at them as well as their ability to ignore distracting objects.
Attention less developed than others
“We found that infants and toddlers who use the touch screen a lot look at objects more quickly when they appear and are less able to ignore distracting objects than those who use it little.says Tim Smith, principal investigator at the Birkbeck Center for Brain and Cognitive Development. The use of smartphones and tablets by babies and young children has rapidly accelerated in recent years. The early years of life are crucial for children to learn to control their attention and ignore distractions, early skills that are known to be important for later academic achievement. There is growing concern that toddlers’ use of the touchscreen may have a negative effect on their attention development, but there was previously no empirical evidence to support this..”
On average, the difference between “large” and “small” touchscreen consumers is 29 milliseconds, and this increases slightly over time. This means that attention and concentration skills are more difficult to develop in children who are constantly absorbed by screens. If the differences may seem small, they nevertheless underline the harmful potential that screens can have on the development of a child, which Rachael Bedford, co-investigator at the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, points out: “What we need to know next is how this tendency to look more at distracting objects on screens relates to attention in the real world: is it a positive sign that children have adapted to the multitasking demands of their complex everyday environment or are they difficulties with tasks that require concentration?”
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