Links between Children's Screen Time and Later Language, Educational Skills, and Peer Relationships

What is it about?

Children are spending more time on screens like smartphones and tablets, which has raised concerns among parents, health experts, and researchers. It’s important to understand how this screen time affects their development. In this study, we followed 6,281 children in New Zealand to see how screen use between ages 2 and 4.5 impacted their skills and social interactions later on. We looked at language development, early learning skills, and social functioning at ages 4.5 and 8. Our results show that kids who spent more time on screens tended to have lower vocabulary, communication, writing, math, and letter recognition skills. They also had more problems getting along with peers. While the size of these effects decreased once family background factors were considered, the negative impact of screen time remained significant. Specifically, children who had more than 1.5 hours of daily screen time at age 2 were more likely to have below-average language and learning abilities and more peer relationship problems by age 4.5. By age 8, kids who spent more than 2.5 hours a day on screens were more likely to have ongoing peer relationship challenges.

Featured Image

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study is important because it indicates that even after controlling for social background characteristics, higher levels of screen time in early childhood are longitudinally associated with poorer developmental outcomes, including language, early educational skills, and forming positive friendships. Such information is critical to help inform policy guidelines, health care, and parenting practices regarding the availability and children’s use of screens in early childhood.