Taking Another Look at Screen Time for Young Children

Abstract

The issue of the amount of “screen time” that children engage in, whether through television, computers, or mobile devices, is a topic that frequently comes up in anticipatory guidance discussions with families. Often, this recommendation has been part of the larger “10 – 2 – 1 – 0” daily mnemonic guiding well-child visits for young children: 10 hours of sleep, 2 hours of screen time, 1 hour of physical activity, and 0 sugary drinks. Much hope has been placed in the educational potential of interactive media for young children, but there is also real concern about the overuse of digital media during periods of rapid brain development. Indeed, some research has shown that excessive parental use of mobile devices is correlated with fewer verbal and nonverbal interactions between parents and children and may also be associated with parent-child conflict (Radesky et al., 2015Radesky J. Miller A. Rosenblum K. Appugliese D. Dacirot N. Lumeng J. Maternal mobile device use during a structured parent-child interaction task.Academic Pediatrics. 2015; 15: 238-244Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (133) Google Scholar). Recent guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics (American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, 2016American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and MediaMedia and young minds.Pediatrics. 2016; 138 (e20162591)Google Scholar) have placed the issue of mobile and interactive technologies in a much broader context, and they highlight important considerations for caregivers and providers who wish to effectively structure the utilization of screen time for children, beyond implementing a simplistic time limit for usage. The guidelines restate that children younger than 2 years of age need hands-on interaction and social interaction with parents and caregivers to develop their skills, and there is little evidence for the benefit of media in this age group. However, many parents have effectively used video chat (such as Skype and FaceTime) to facilitate social connections with distant friends and relatives, with proper parental support so that young children and toddlers can understand what they are seeing. The guidelines further state that parents should actively seek out educational and pro–social media content for their children and then actively engage with their children while accessing such content. Specifically, some of the recommendations of the new media guidelines for young children are as follows (American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, 2016American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and MediaMedia and young minds.Pediatrics. 2016; 138 (e20162591)Google Scholar):•Help families develop a Family Media Use Plan (www.healthychildren.org/MediaUsePlan).•Educate parents about the importance of hands-on, unstructured, and social play to foster language, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills.•For children younger than 18 months, discourage the use of screen media except for video-chatting.•Choose high-quality programming/apps and use them together with your children. (Good resources include Common Sense Media, PBS Kids, and Sesame Workshop.)•Avoid screen time during meals and 1 hour before bedtime.•Do not feel pressured to introduce technology at an early age; the interfaces are intuitive, and children should be able to quickly figure them out at home or once they start school. Thus, the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media, 2016American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and MediaMedia and young minds.Pediatrics. 2016; 138 (e20162591)Google Scholar guidelines now recommend that for young children (infants, toddlers, and preschoolers), digital media should be limited to about 1 hour/day so that children engage in other unstructured and social play and participate in responsive parent–child interactions. Moreover, parents and caregivers are also now encouraged to be more actively involved with the content that children access and to be fully aware of the importance of parent–child shared media use. For us as providers, this is an important area for clinical research and best practices based on the growing body of evidence.