{"id":788158,"date":"2026-10-01T04:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T04:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788158\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T04:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T04:28:20","slug":"more-screen-time-is-linked-to-poorer-child-development-study-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/788158\/","title":{"rendered":"More screen time is linked to poorer child development, study shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n There is a link between the amount of time children spend on screens<\/a> and their development<\/a>, a new study shows, with poorer outcomes seen in learning, speech and emotional regulation among those who spend longer on them.\n <\/p>\n

\n Researchers reviewed decades of research on the impact of screen time on child development, which looked at nearly three million children aged 18 and under from 64 countries, senior author Sheri Madigan, a professor of psychology at the University of Calgary, Canada, told CNN on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe found that overall, greater screen time was associated with poorer outcomes for children across several areas of development, including how they think, learn, speak, behave, and regulate emotions,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMost of the associations were relatively small, like most other predictors of child development, but small does not mean meaningless, particularly when we\u2019re talking about an exposure like screen time, which is nearly universal in children\u2019s lives.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Madigan added that newer studies presented evidence of stronger associations between screen time and child development than older ones.\n <\/p>\n

\n One possible explanation is that screen time has changed, she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTwenty years ago, a child might have spent an hour watching a television program. Today, devices are everywhere, carried in our hands, and they are also interactive, engaging, and responsive to the individual,\u201d Madigan said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe need to better understand not just how children interact with technology, but how technology interacts with children.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Nonetheless, she said parents shouldn\u2019t conclude that \u201cscreens are inherently bad for children\u201d after reading the study but should pay attention to how they are used.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTechnology is a big part of children\u2019s lives and digital technologies can be wonderful tools to support children\u2019s learning, creativity, and connection,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHowever, they can also crowd out what children really need to thrive, such as sleep, physical activity, human connection, learning, and play.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n As a start, rather than getting rid of devices completely, parents could identify an area or time period in which screens get in the way of what children need.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFor many families, a good place to start is having device-free dinners or creating a regular time of day when everyone puts devices aside and connects with one another,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Parents shouldn\u2019t be left to manage screen time alone, and governments also have a role to play, said Madigan.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cGovernments should treat children\u2019s screen use the way they treat other factors that we know are associated with children\u2019s well-being, including through screen-use guidance for families, education, research, and ensuring children are safeguarded from online harms,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen governments do this, it helps signal to parents, schools, and technology companies that screen use is something worth taking seriously.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Next, Madigan and her fellow researchers will investigate which children are more affected by different digital experiences and why.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBecause our findings are correlational, they don\u2019t prove that screens cause these developmental outcomes. While it\u2019s possible that screen use may contribute to difficulties, it is also possible that children who are struggling turn to screens more,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cDisentangling the direction of these associations is therefore an important future direction.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Tatiana \u00cd\u00f1iguez Berrozpe, senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, who was not involved in the study, said it was \u201ca methodologically very sound article\u201d that draws on an \u201cextremely large\u201d sample.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a comment released via the Science Media Centre (SMC), she said that \u201cthe main findings confirm what research has been showing for years and which puts the current media and social moral panic surrounding the relationship between young people and screens into perspective: there is an association between screen time and poorer indicators of mental health and academic performance, but it is very small.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Esther van Sluijs, professor of behavioral epidemiology at Loughborough University in the UK, who was also not involved in the study, said that \u201cthis is a high-quality study,\u201d with some caveats.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt cannot draw robust conclusions about specific types of screen use, like social media use or gaming, as there was not enough data to study this,\u201d she said in a statement published by SMC.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe should therefore be cautious in interpreting these results in the context of young people\u2019s current screen use habits.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The study was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a link between the amount of time children spend on screens and their development, a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-788158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}