A recent research published on August 21, 2023 links too much screen time to communication and problem-solving developmental delays.
Authored by Ippei Takashi, Taku Obara, and Mami Ishikuro, the study’s key point is to know if there is a dose-response association between screen time for children aged 1 year and functional development at ages 2 and 4 years.
The said study is published in Jama Network, an online medical journal and archive recognized by the American Medical Association.
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Its objective is to examine the association between screen time exposure among children aged 1 year and the five domains of developmental delay (communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal and social skills) at age 2 and 4 years.
According to the study’s introduction, there are only a few studies published about the direct correlation of screen time, children’s age and developmental delays. It also mentioned the guidelines from the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics that recommend limiting screen time for children, including a limit of 1 hour per day for children aged 2 to 5 years. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, children’s screen time has increased because of the proliferation of digital devices and accessibility of technology.
Due to these reasons, the authors found it essential to consider how screen time affects child development.
Methodology and results
The extensive study was done between July 2013 and March 2017, under the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project Birth and Three-Generation Cohort Study. 7,097 mother-child pairs from Miyagi and Iwate prefectures in Japan were included in the analysis. The data analysis was performed on March 20, 2023.
1 year old children were divided into four categories of screen time exposure per day, less than one hour, one to two hours, two to four hours and more than four hours.
After assessing all the data, the research concluded that greater screen time for children aged 1 year was associated with developmental delays in communication and problem-solving skills at ages 2 to 4 years.
Children’s screen time was associated with a higher risk of developmental delay at age 2 years in communication, fine motor, problem-solving and personal and social skills. Regarding risk of developmental delay at age 4, associations were identified in the communication and problem-solving domains.
RELATED: Does My Child Have Developmental Delay? Use This Milestones Checklist!
Study’s limitation: categorizing screen time
Included in the published research is the limitation of the study, “A limitation is that the information we collected did not allow us to separate educational screen time from other types of screen time. Doing so may have helped us in examining the association between screen time and child development while considering both positive and negative aspects of screen time.”
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