Nituda, John Mark S.

82-A Psychology

Screen time and developmental health: results from an early childhood study in
Canada

Insight

In the past two decades, screen time (e.g., watching television, or playing virtual games)
has almost doubled among young children. I’ve learned that screen time may be particularly
concerning for children from low-income families. Screen time, furthermore, appears to interfere
with social interactions (e.g., with family and peers) and negatively affects sleep quality and
duration in children. There's a reason this study is important because it shows that for
preschool-aged children, lower income was related to more time spent watching television. In
essence, for children from low-income families, the association between watching television and
lower cognition functioning and problem-solving skills is moderated stronger for children from
low-income families. These consequences had an effect on daily screen time that exceeds into
one-hour limit for young children. Screen-based activities should thus be limited for young
children because it is negatively associated with developmental health outcomes in early
childhood. Furthermore, this research affected me in my early childhood because I was then a
young child, and screen time may be particularly concerning because I’m from a low-income
family. I was focused on watching television every day because that was my main happiness at
that time, It shows that one hour of screen time per day was positively associated with
vulnerability in physical, social, emotional, and cognitive developmental health domains, and it is
negatively associated with developmental health outcomes in early childhood.

Summary

This study draws from a data linkage on children in British Columbia (BC), Canada, who
entered Kindergarten in public elementary schools in 2019. This research shows that longer
hours of screen time are negatively associated with children’s healthy development. Specifically,
more than one hour of screen time per day was positively associated with vulnerability in
physical, social, emotional, and cognitive developmental health domains In a research by
Cooper. (2017), Screen time, furthermore, appears to interfere with social interactions (e.g., with
family and peers) and negatively affects sleep quality and duration in children. ( As cited in
Almas et al. 2022). Whereas most research has focused on school-age children, less is known
about this association in early childhood. To fill this gap, they examined the association between
screen time and developmental health in preschool-aged children.

Reference

Almas, A., Forer, B., Guhn, M., Kerai, S., Oberle, E. (2022) Screen time and developmental
health: results from an early childhood study in Canada. BMC Public Health. 22, 310.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12701-3