Abstract
Today, preschoolers actively use digital devices. Therefore, we investigated how digital devices potentially affect significant predictors of preschoolers’ social-emotional and cognitive development, executive functions, and speech. The results obtained revealed that 5-6-year-old children who used digital devices for less than 1.5 hours per day demonstrated an improvement in cognitive flexibility level within a year, while 2.5 hours of screen time caused a decrease in cognitive flexibility. Passive screen time negatively affects children’s phonemic hearing. Opposite to that, active screen time does not affect it. The study revealed that 5-6-year-old children who usually played digital games and watched video content together with their siblings demonstrated more noticeable positive dynamics in inhibitory control than those who did it alone. Moreover, if it was the parents who determined what digital content would be available to their children, the latter demonstrated an increment in inhibitory control compared to the children who made the choice themselves. Junior school children who used digital devices in a cultural way at preschool age had higher level of executive functions development than the children who used the devices only in a natural way. Thus, digital devices are multidimensional tools and, depending on how they are used, the impact on a child’s development may be different.
Published Version
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