Excessive screen time may inhibit a child’s ability to observe and experience the typical everyday activities they need to engage with in order to learn about the world, leading to a kind of “tunnel vision,” which can be detrimental to overall development. Young children learn by exploring their environment and watching the adults in their lives and then imitating them. But how do screens affect early childhood development?įor young children, especially those under the age of 3, development is happening rapidly. We know that kids have easy access to screens, now more than ever. Cross, also an assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, about the impact of screen time on kids’ developing brains and what parents and caregivers can do. “If young children spend most of their time engaging with an iPad, smartphone, or the television, all of which are highly entertaining, it can be hard to get them engaged in non-electronic activities, such as playing with toys to foster imagination and creativity, exploring outdoors, and playing with other children to develop appropriate social skills.” Cross, attending pediatrician and a developmental and behavioral pediatrics expert at NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital. “There is emerging evidence that there may be some structural brain changes associated with greater exposure to screen time as a young child,” says Dr. A landmark National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that began in 2018, for example, found that children who spent more than two hours a day on screen-time activities scored lower on language and thinking tests, and some children with more than seven hours a day of screen time experienced thinning of the brain’s cortex, the area of the brain related to critical thinking and reasoning. This research supports several previous studies that have shown a correlation between the amount of screen time among young children and the presence of developmental delays particularly in communication and problem-solving skills. Also, more screen time for 1-year-olds was associated with developmental delays in fine motor and personal and social skills at age 2. According to data, using a validated screening tool, 1-year-olds who were exposed to more than four hours of screen time per day showed delays in communication and problem solving at ages 2 and 4. The findings were based on parent reports of screen time use at 1 year and developmental skills at ages 2 and 4 years from a group of nearly 8,000 young children. This week, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics found that screen time may be associated with delayed development in young children. What is all this screen time doing to kids’ brains? Consider this: Nearly half of all children 8 and under have their own tablet device and spend an average of about 2.25 hours a day on digital screens, according to Common Sense Media.
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