In this longitudinal study, cumulative average screen viewing time was associated with lower academic performance but not working memory, with the strongest effect sizes seen for single screen viewing time occurring in early infancy.
Cumulative average exposure models showed that screen viewing time over childhood was consistently associated with poorer academic performance but not working memory.
Yeah, I admit I didn't click through and read the methods so it's possible they did what was necessary, but off the top of my head, you would need to do your best to model:
1. Parents' own socioeconomic status
2. Parents' educational attainment
3. Parents' working memory (since this is one of the measures, and it's somewhat heritable)
broke tired people who need time to do basic tasks at home end up putting their kids in front of screens -- news at 11
meanwhile bourgeoisie programmer types working at home take kiddo for a walk to the park and then hand them off to the after school programs or Filipina nanny
Interesting. I have bad hopes for the data on children growing up with AI, which makes it easy to never apply critical thinking and finding own solutions.
That's the silver lining regarding how poor Siri works on my HomePods. I'm not sure I want my kids get perfect advice from AI, but I do want them to be able to get it somehow.
Why though? I’m very much not playing devil’s advocate here… but at 1 it’s like probably a bit of calming classic nursery rhymes with benign animations; maybe start to learn some counting and ABC’s by osmosis.
That same 2 hours at 5-8 seems to me to steer towards something like: toxic wish fulfillment, materialism, inappropriate slang & behavior models, “pranks” (ptuh)
Have your ever seen the face of a baby when screen, any screen is visible? They lock their sight on it, anything else is irrelevant including mother. Its like watching a heroin junkie with full syringe dangling around.
Maybe those kids with such massive exposure are more used to it, never did that experiment with our own kids. I may fail them later in life somehow but I certainly didn't do such basic mistake, screens are toxic to young mind on many levels, active ones quadruple so.
I've heard all the excuses from the parents, but in reality it mostly boils down to 'we are tired, we are lazy, I don't care anymore' from people glued to screens themselves. As parents do, so children follow. its hardly ever a 'good' content, cheap dopamine kicks is what works best.
I wonder when will society wake up, and starts treating these actors in similar fashion as say pedophiles. Active harm to kids is harm to kids, fucking up our future is one of worst crimes out there.
The screen time crowds out time they could be interacting with the real world, engaging with all of their senses, and interacting with people. Two hours per day adds up over a critical time of their life that their peers are beginning to learn how to accurately learn to model the world and communicate.
At one years old, 2 hours is massive percentage of their "awake and aware" time, considering how much time they sleep and eat at this age.
It's not entirely about what they're watching (though even what you are describing sounds awful), it's about what they're missing out on in that time. It's 2 hrs every day not communicating with another human being, not developing motor skills, not problem solving etc.
I have 2 kids under 5 and we have ~0 screen time (unless we are having some sort of crisis and need a distraction for a few minutes). We spend time with similar families, and those with more screen time. I'm not trying to sound superior when I say there is a VAST difference in ability between the two groups.
As far as I'm aware, kids at that age are very dependent on experiencing the effects of their actions. They lift the wooden cube and drop it, and it makes a sound and rolls a bit. Do it again and it does it similarly but different. Push this chair leg and the whole chair moves away, pull it and the whole chair moves back.
Now they did not specify in the freely accessible portion but especially non-interactive stimulus is thus problematic as I understand.
As I recall there have been studies on this regarding toys that flashes lights and makes sound without interaction causing it, and the babies have a markedly different brain response to those, compared to toys which only blinks and sounds in response to direct interaction.
The other reason is that simply playing with the baby using wooden blocks, small dolls and such is in my experience plenty to keep them engaged.
> Why though? I’m very much not playing devil’s advocate here… but at 1 it’s like probably a bit of calming classic nursery rhymes with benign animations; maybe start to learn some counting and ABC’s by osmosis.
Kids, especially kids that age, don't learn from screens. They learn from interactions with people and the real world. A screen just mesmerizes them, and distracts them from higher value activities.
And you shouldn't be trying to teach 1-year-olds counting and ABCs, it's totally inappropriate. They're learning things like speaking, how to move their bodies, etc.
I'll disagree a bit, although arguably its mostly the audio. Good calm shows with wide vocabularies are similar to reading. Watching Stillwater is quite a bit different than watching Paw Patrol.
1 is quite a bit different than 2 though. It's good this differentiated between 1 and 1.5.
But why. Why are we stimulating with mindless color movement, like a modern lava lamp?
You can tell which kids shows care and which dont by how much unnecessary movement they introduce into the background plate. Some have a breathing and swaying so every element is in motion, others have stillness so your eyes and attention are drawn to the actual action.
"Screen viewing" seems very vague. What did they do with their screens? Did they read an encyclopedia, or did they watch entertainment content videos? It's an important distinction.
We’re having this sort of conversation at the school that I work at, which serves remote communities and other disadvantaged students. One of our states is currently making noise about reducing “screen time” for schools without much distinction about what it involves.
And here’s us, an online only school that serves kids that otherwise wouldn’t be able to access education at all or some types of classes at best, left wondering where that might leave us if our state decides to zombie its way into similar policy decisions.
I've seen hundreds of kids watching screens, none of them were reading an encyclopedia, most of them are consuming some form of low quality youtube brain rot
Sounds like it's just focused on shows and games from the description in the paper:
> At ages 1 and 1.5 years, which was conducted in a subsample, parents were asked to report the average amount of time that the child spent daily on television (TV) on weekdays and weekends within the past month. This was collected in 2010 to 2011 when TV was the primary source of screen viewing time for 97% of Singaporean families [38]. At ages 2, 3 and 6 years, parents were asked to report the amount of time, in 5-min increments, their child spent using screens on weekdays and weekend days. Three types
of devices were considered separately: (1) TV and TV-related games consoles; (2) computers (desktop or laptop); and (3) hand-held devices including tablets, smartphones, and hand-held games consoles. At age 8 years, parents were asked to report on their child’s time spent sitting or lying down while watching screens on the most recent weekday (school days) and on the most recent Saturday and Sunday. Four types of devices/media were considered separately: (1) watching videos on a TV (TV programs, DVDs, Blu-ray); (2) watching videos or playing games on computers; (3) watching videos or playing games on tablets or smartphones; and (4) playing video games on consoles.
I can understand that, but a few things that are reassuring.
Screen time is not that new a problem. Kids have been put in front of the TV since the 70s or 80s. When my older daughter was born two decades ago people said we could not do without the "electronic babysitter". We did not. I have never owned a TV in my adult life and I think it was very good with my kids (who are now adults).
Are you forced to let young kids use screens and can you control how? My kids had desktop computers in family areas to start with (and not at the age of one!), educational software (GCompris for example). Later they got ebook readers and non-smart phones, and smart phones (with rules about usage and what apps could be installed) later.
A lot of the issues are parents who cannot put their devices down. You do not need to keep your kids entertained as much if you interact with them. For example, if the adults sitting down to a meal are on their phones, they they need something to keep the kids quiet. if you talk to them, you do not. It also means you can teach them how to behave in places like restaurants.
I think the root problem is not the kids, its adults' addictions to devices leading them to neglect kids.
This is only partially true. We depressingly agreed to get my daughter a phone for her 8th birthday.
She's the last person in her class to have one. That means when we drop her off at a birthday, she's the one playing with a fake phone while all the other kids have real ones. She's the one at the end of the school day begging to use her friend's phone.
Social pressure matters and making your kid the odd one out sucks.
Obviously we will put strict limits on it but I honestly felt like I was stuck with two awful choices.
Wow that's insane. I assumed kids get phones well after 10 and even then it's crazy. IMO good guideline is when they start to roam a bit on themselves, i.e. going to clubs, mates, I guess around 12?
My kids are begging me for phones and they are 8 and 10, I'm trying to hold out a few more years if i can, but once I get one for the older brother it's pretty much over. I think a smart watch is reasonable at first at least to get a gps tracker going, and they can still use it to text home if needed.
That is a real problem, but at least you were able to keep her off one until eight and I think that helps a lot - younger is far worse.
My kids are older (so the pressure was less a few years ago), and home education helped a bit (less school pressure, lots of parents with different rules to each other) but eventually I had to allow usage of of some things I was not happy with because that was where her friends were and how they arranged to meet up etc.
There are practical advantages to being able to communicate, especially when out alone and needing to be picked up or something. A dumb phone will do that perfectly well, of course.
Schools in the UK are banning (and state schools have to) the use of phones during school hours. The problem is that there is increasing need to use phones out of school. My daughter (when she went to sixth form college for A levels) needed a mobile app to use monthly bus tickets which were much cheaper, for example, and this sort of thing is getting worse.
> Screen time is not that new a problem. Kids have been put in front of the TV since the 70s or 80s.
apples and oranges, kids in 70s and 80s had this TV everywhere they moved? in car, public transprot, in playground, everywhere? completely different thing from screen always available in your pocket
I remember that time. A mix of concerns over financial security, what kind of parent I'd be, and what I would do in the alone times where help isn't available and it all came down to me. We were young college kids in love and scared out of our minds.
19 years later, the adventure continues. Becoming what you think is an adult, what I would say is someone who knows what to do in scary moments as well as someone who can plan ahead and execute that plan, is always a work in progress. No one will ever know your kid during their childhood better than you. Treat advice, including this advice, like its a jacket to try on. Maybe it fits and you like it. Maybe not. You're under no obligation to accept it.
When you do introduce some video, which is easy to slip into around 18 months, there is tons of good stuff.
Stillwater, Shape Island, Slumberkins, Interrupting Chicken, Not a Box, Duck and Goose, Frog and Toad, Get Rolling with Otis and Snoopy are all on Apple TV.
Tumble Leaf, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Creative Galaxy, Stinky and Dirty, Fireman Sam Classic are on Prime.
PBS still exists for now.
Caitie's Classroom / Super Simple is on Youtube, Prime, and Spotify.
The internet is a bit of a toxic place to base your worldview on parenting. You do you. Remember, billions of rounded, happy people have been raised for generations without everyone online telling you how you are going to fail if you do too much screentime, aren't present enough, don't do this, don't do that.
Touch grass, trust your instincts, be a kind parent, talk to other parents IN REAL LIFE, not online. Online parents are judgemental wanks.
Shouldn't the title be changed to the conclusion? "Screen viewing time from age 1 to 8 years associated with lower academic performance, but not working memory"
There is a lot missing here. Without paying £30 I cannot see what the adjustments in the adjusted models are.
There is no breakdown for different ages. Its very likely that the effect on a one year old and an eight year old would be very different.
There is no breakdown of what they are watching.
A whole of of confounding variables. Screen time is inevitably going to be associated with less adult attention which is known to be a major factor in development. Lots of others.
"Covariates included in this study were study center, child sex (female, male), birth order, mother’s ethnicity, parental highest education level and TV viewing time (hours/day), maternal age at delivery (in years), household monthly income at recruitment, and maternal sensitivity from a 15-min observation of mother–child interactions at 6 months. "
The big thing missing there are measures of parental behaviour and how much attention the kids get from adults. I would love to see an adjustment for parental screen time, or a study of the impact of parental screen time on academic performance.
A lot of new parents in my family are simply not giving any screen to kids until they are much older. The only exception is using it to play some brainrot to get them to eat if it's turning out to be a particularly difficult meal. Most of the time though, they're shown the birds or the clouds or something.
It works well, but I see one 11 year old watching YouTube sometimes, so I guess that's about when you just can't avoid it anymore. None of them have their own devices though.
Given the negative social perception of screen time, wouldn't the parents be motivated to report lower than actual numbers? Furthermore, this is one population (Singapore) and doesn't detail (at least not in the summary) how screen time varied from day to day (eg my children have substantially less screen time on school days, than weekends. Screen time in both cases tends to be biased towards breakfast time, when the house is a bit manic, or after significant periods of outdoor/energetic activity when everyone needs a rest.)
Probably lot to see in the details about cause and correlation but could certainly be used to confirm that "screens" doesn't make children stupid. Just lazy or impatient at most.
But difference between passive screen like tv and active like smartphone would have been interesting also.
Directly mapping screen time with academic performance is difficult to correlate. Like the article shows that age 1 has the strongest association, but I feel at a very early age like 1, screen time is not in your(toddler's) hands and slowly, as age grows, kids become habitual. It like the impact is not linear.
Also, I think the type of content kids consume can tell us more about the performance, because IMO, long form content can have a different impact than short form.
It's an interesting study to follow and if anyone has access to the raw data, I would be really interested in looking into it.
55 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 37.2 ms ] threadCumulative average exposure models showed that screen viewing time over childhood was consistently associated with poorer academic performance but not working memory.
1. Parents' own socioeconomic status
2. Parents' educational attainment
3. Parents' working memory (since this is one of the measures, and it's somewhat heritable)
Not easy at all.
broke tired people who need time to do basic tasks at home end up putting their kids in front of screens -- news at 11
meanwhile bourgeoisie programmer types working at home take kiddo for a walk to the park and then hand them off to the after school programs or Filipina nanny
Though I admit I'm privileged by living in Norway and don't have to work crazy hours to make ends meet.
That same 2 hours at 5-8 seems to me to steer towards something like: toxic wish fulfillment, materialism, inappropriate slang & behavior models, “pranks” (ptuh)
Maybe those kids with such massive exposure are more used to it, never did that experiment with our own kids. I may fail them later in life somehow but I certainly didn't do such basic mistake, screens are toxic to young mind on many levels, active ones quadruple so.
I've heard all the excuses from the parents, but in reality it mostly boils down to 'we are tired, we are lazy, I don't care anymore' from people glued to screens themselves. As parents do, so children follow. its hardly ever a 'good' content, cheap dopamine kicks is what works best.
I wonder when will society wake up, and starts treating these actors in similar fashion as say pedophiles. Active harm to kids is harm to kids, fucking up our future is one of worst crimes out there.
they tune out Mr. Rodgers and BBC News pretty quickly, and it's on to biting daddy or the dog, etc.
At one years old, 2 hours is massive percentage of their "awake and aware" time, considering how much time they sleep and eat at this age.
I have 2 kids under 5 and we have ~0 screen time (unless we are having some sort of crisis and need a distraction for a few minutes). We spend time with similar families, and those with more screen time. I'm not trying to sound superior when I say there is a VAST difference in ability between the two groups.
Now they did not specify in the freely accessible portion but especially non-interactive stimulus is thus problematic as I understand.
As I recall there have been studies on this regarding toys that flashes lights and makes sound without interaction causing it, and the babies have a markedly different brain response to those, compared to toys which only blinks and sounds in response to direct interaction.
The other reason is that simply playing with the baby using wooden blocks, small dolls and such is in my experience plenty to keep them engaged.
Kids, especially kids that age, don't learn from screens. They learn from interactions with people and the real world. A screen just mesmerizes them, and distracts them from higher value activities.
And you shouldn't be trying to teach 1-year-olds counting and ABCs, it's totally inappropriate. They're learning things like speaking, how to move their bodies, etc.
I'll disagree a bit, although arguably its mostly the audio. Good calm shows with wide vocabularies are similar to reading. Watching Stillwater is quite a bit different than watching Paw Patrol.
1 is quite a bit different than 2 though. It's good this differentiated between 1 and 1.5.
But why. Why are we stimulating with mindless color movement, like a modern lava lamp?
You can tell which kids shows care and which dont by how much unnecessary movement they introduce into the background plate. Some have a breathing and swaying so every element is in motion, others have stillness so your eyes and attention are drawn to the actual action.
And here’s us, an online only school that serves kids that otherwise wouldn’t be able to access education at all or some types of classes at best, left wondering where that might leave us if our state decides to zombie its way into similar policy decisions.
> At ages 1 and 1.5 years, which was conducted in a subsample, parents were asked to report the average amount of time that the child spent daily on television (TV) on weekdays and weekends within the past month. This was collected in 2010 to 2011 when TV was the primary source of screen viewing time for 97% of Singaporean families [38]. At ages 2, 3 and 6 years, parents were asked to report the amount of time, in 5-min increments, their child spent using screens on weekdays and weekend days. Three types of devices were considered separately: (1) TV and TV-related games consoles; (2) computers (desktop or laptop); and (3) hand-held devices including tablets, smartphones, and hand-held games consoles. At age 8 years, parents were asked to report on their child’s time spent sitting or lying down while watching screens on the most recent weekday (school days) and on the most recent Saturday and Sunday. Four types of devices/media were considered separately: (1) watching videos on a TV (TV programs, DVDs, Blu-ray); (2) watching videos or playing games on computers; (3) watching videos or playing games on tablets or smartphones; and (4) playing video games on consoles.
Screen time is not that new a problem. Kids have been put in front of the TV since the 70s or 80s. When my older daughter was born two decades ago people said we could not do without the "electronic babysitter". We did not. I have never owned a TV in my adult life and I think it was very good with my kids (who are now adults).
Are you forced to let young kids use screens and can you control how? My kids had desktop computers in family areas to start with (and not at the age of one!), educational software (GCompris for example). Later they got ebook readers and non-smart phones, and smart phones (with rules about usage and what apps could be installed) later.
A lot of the issues are parents who cannot put their devices down. You do not need to keep your kids entertained as much if you interact with them. For example, if the adults sitting down to a meal are on their phones, they they need something to keep the kids quiet. if you talk to them, you do not. It also means you can teach them how to behave in places like restaurants.
I think the root problem is not the kids, its adults' addictions to devices leading them to neglect kids.
She's the last person in her class to have one. That means when we drop her off at a birthday, she's the one playing with a fake phone while all the other kids have real ones. She's the one at the end of the school day begging to use her friend's phone.
Social pressure matters and making your kid the odd one out sucks.
Obviously we will put strict limits on it but I honestly felt like I was stuck with two awful choices.
Wow that's insane. I assumed kids get phones well after 10 and even then it's crazy. IMO good guideline is when they start to roam a bit on themselves, i.e. going to clubs, mates, I guess around 12?
My kids are older (so the pressure was less a few years ago), and home education helped a bit (less school pressure, lots of parents with different rules to each other) but eventually I had to allow usage of of some things I was not happy with because that was where her friends were and how they arranged to meet up etc.
There are practical advantages to being able to communicate, especially when out alone and needing to be picked up or something. A dumb phone will do that perfectly well, of course.
Schools in the UK are banning (and state schools have to) the use of phones during school hours. The problem is that there is increasing need to use phones out of school. My daughter (when she went to sixth form college for A levels) needed a mobile app to use monthly bus tickets which were much cheaper, for example, and this sort of thing is getting worse.
You said "playing", not "instagram" or "facebook" right?
apples and oranges, kids in 70s and 80s had this TV everywhere they moved? in car, public transprot, in playground, everywhere? completely different thing from screen always available in your pocket
this has been my experience. lot of parents who reflexively go to the phone -- they need their dopamine hit, and this means the kiddies get one too
19 years later, the adventure continues. Becoming what you think is an adult, what I would say is someone who knows what to do in scary moments as well as someone who can plan ahead and execute that plan, is always a work in progress. No one will ever know your kid during their childhood better than you. Treat advice, including this advice, like its a jacket to try on. Maybe it fits and you like it. Maybe not. You're under no obligation to accept it.
You got this!
Stillwater, Shape Island, Slumberkins, Interrupting Chicken, Not a Box, Duck and Goose, Frog and Toad, Get Rolling with Otis and Snoopy are all on Apple TV.
Tumble Leaf, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Creative Galaxy, Stinky and Dirty, Fireman Sam Classic are on Prime.
PBS still exists for now.
Caitie's Classroom / Super Simple is on Youtube, Prime, and Spotify.
Touch grass, trust your instincts, be a kind parent, talk to other parents IN REAL LIFE, not online. Online parents are judgemental wanks.
There is no breakdown for different ages. Its very likely that the effect on a one year old and an eight year old would be very different.
There is no breakdown of what they are watching.
A whole of of confounding variables. Screen time is inevitably going to be associated with less adult attention which is known to be a major factor in development. Lots of others.
It works well, but I see one 11 year old watching YouTube sometimes, so I guess that's about when you just can't avoid it anymore. None of them have their own devices though.
But difference between passive screen like tv and active like smartphone would have been interesting also.
Also, I think the type of content kids consume can tell us more about the performance, because IMO, long form content can have a different impact than short form.
It's an interesting study to follow and if anyone has access to the raw data, I would be really interested in looking into it.