EXCESS SCREEN-TIME FOR CHILDREN
To put simply, excess screen use at a young age is not good. Various organizations like AACAP, the World Health Organization, and Internet Matters have all released information pertaining to the topic to spread awareness to parents. To specify, there is a different between screen-time and excess screen-time. Because it seems that screens are here to stay, it is important to establish healthy habits from an early age. Specific links to the pages I collected information from are located in the Other Resources tab in the top menu.
The World Health Organization includes very specific screen-time recommendations by age group. This includes infants and 1 year olds, who aren't recommended to have any screen-time. A child who is 2 shouldn't watch more than an hour, with less time preferred. And children aged 3-4 should have no more than one hour of screen-time. They also discuss the importance of movement and play in place of screens and sitting.
Shahla Chehrazi, M.D., agreed with these sentiments in their own article. Listing 3 important guidelines for parents to follow, as well as noting that "screen time is best used in an interactive manner. More specifically, that a child is supervised and engaged in real-time conversation with the parents on what they are watching. They went further and provided more information in their article The Importance of Liming Screen Time in Adolescence.
A study by Takahashi et. al from 2023 titled Screen Time at Age 1 Year and Communication and Problem-Solving Developmental Delay at 2 and 4 Years is also worth talking about in this context and provides informative data to back up their claims. Specifically they tracked the 5 domains of child development including, communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal and social skills as the group aged. This study’s group included 7,097 children and their respective mothers. Of the children that were exposed to greater amounts of screen time at age 1, they saw developmental delays in communication and problem-solving skills at ages 2 and 4 years.
