Tiny Tots Spending a Lot of Time on Screens
Tiny Tots have also started watching screens and as they start growing up, the time that they spend hooked to the screens also starts increasing. Watching computers, TV, smartphones, electronic games, and tablets are responsible for occupying almost 1 hour of the time of tiny tots. It starts increasing by 150 minutes by the time they become 3. This is beyond what is recommended by the doctors. Since the screen time exposure is responsible for starting early, it is also crucial to understand the factors that are responsible for forming the screen time habits, as stated by Edwina Yeung, the investigator in the epidemiology branch in the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Tracking the screen time
Indeed, the kind of childcare that you are selecting for your little one is not modifiable, but the awareness of the impact can help the parents to look for new ways of restricting exposure. This can be done by discussing the use of the screen with caretakers and also making use of technologies for tracking screen time. Edwina was responsible for collecting data along with her team on around mothers of almost 4000 children. These ladies stated that the media habits of their tiny tots started when they were aged between one to eight years. However, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, kids who are under 18 years of age should not be exposed to any screen time at all.
Therefore, Screen time needs to be gradually introduced between eighteen and twenty-four months and should be limited to around one hour for children between two and five years, as suggested by the guidelines. However, according to the studies conducted by Edwina and her team, kids were hooked onto the screens for much longer than the suggested time.
What the study showed
According to Edwina’s team, 87% of the kids were glued to screens for longer than the suggested period. So, as the kids started reaching 7 years of age, the screen time automatically started declining. It was speculated that this decline was primarily a result of the school activities, according to Edwina.
However, there were several differences among children as well. The screen time for almost 73% of the kids started increasing from one hour every day to almost two hours. For around 27% of the children, the screen time increased from thirty minutes to around 4 hours as well. According to the research, most of the screen-time was associated with a low level of parental education. Apart from that, girls do not use screens as much as boys. Also, kids who are at home as opposed to daycare had more screen-time, as noticed by the study authors.
According to Reshma Naidoo, the director of the cognitive neuroscience department of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami stated that it is not right to expose infants to screens for the first 18 months. Children should be kept as far away from screens as possible as qualities like anticipation and patience do not develop because of the spontaneous reinforcement offered by the screens.