Fifteen years ago, Apple introduced the iPad, which revolutionized the use of tablet computers. The touch screen and ease of use made the iPad ideal for entertaining and educating young children, and a generation has now grown up familiar with interacting with tablet computers from their earliest years.
Most parents today — not to mention grandparents — are too old to have had these devices as a regular part of early childhood. They often feel conflicted about providing young children with screen time.
While these media devices can occupy and engage young minds, families worry about what the long-term consequences might be. Researchers have been investigating this subject.
One of the leading researchers on the consequences of screen use among young children is Rebecca Dore, PhD and director of research at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy within the College of Education and Human Ecology.
Dore said that “screen time guilt” is a phenomenon that may have significant effects on young children due to how interactions surrounding screen use affect the parent-child bond.
Recent research has shown that parents who experience high levels of guilt around their children’s screen time have lower parent-child relationship satisfaction. This may be related to less positive interactions and negative impacts on child outcomes.
“I’m concerned that parents who feel guilt about giving their children screen time may be doing more harm than the screen time itself,” Dore said.
Don’t obsess over the minutes your child views media
One source of parents’ unease about screen use concerns time limits. The American Academy of Pediatrics initially recommended limiting screen time by children ages 2 to 5 to no more than one hour a day with active parental engagement.
While the physicians’ group has since updated its recommendations with less definitive time limits on screen use — emphasizing instead the quality of children’s screen use over quantity — the initial recommendations remain embedded in some parents’ minds, Dore said.
“Parents can become obsessed with thinking that 59 minutes of screen time is OK, and 61 minutes is harmful,” Dore said.
Rather than worry about the amount of time young children are spending with media devices, Dore said families should ensure that the time spent with screens is purposeful.
“Moderate amounts of screen time may not matter. What seems to matter is how you are using screens,” Dore said. Research conducted by Dore has shown that screen time has little effect on young children’s academic development, though heavy screen use (more than two hours a day) was associated with slower social and emotional development.
Be proactive, not reactive, concerning screen time
Difficulties may emerge if families are using screens reactively — for example to distract a child having difficulty controlling emotions — rather than employing devices in a planned manner, even if screen use is intended to keep a child occupied when an adult is not able to interact with the child, Dore said.
One of Dore’s current projects, Preschoolers’ Language Use and Media (PLUM), examines the impact of media use on preschoolers’ language development.
Yacine Diallo is the project’s coordinator, and she has witnessed firsthand the struggles some families enrolled in the study have had with young children’s screen use.
Some children have thrown tantrums when the tablet is turned off during evaluation visits by research staff. Parents have expressed fears and frustrations about how best to transition the child’s attention when screen time ends.
“One father described his child watching a screen as an addiction,” Diallo said.
Routinely using media as a pacifier does not allow a child to find other ways to self-regulate emotions, Dore said.
Parents’ concerns with how media technology affects their children’s development are nothing new. The widespread availability of television in the 1950s and video game consoles in the 1990s also spurred concerns over dangers to children.
Dore notes, however, that tablets and phones are different, since today’s devices are portable and are always with us, and that our interactions with these devices are almost always solitary.
“Twenty years ago, kids were in the living room with the television or the video game console, so the media exposure came in a way that invited family engagement. It’s harder to engage when a parent can’t see or hear what is going on,” Dore said.
Now that Dore is herself a mother of a young child, she understands personally the mixed emotions families experience concerning media use.
“You’re not immune from that guilt,” Dore said. “But I would try to encourage other parents to focus less on the exact amount of screen time and more on a balanced and intentional approach to media in your family’s life.
“Just because you let your young child look at a screen doesn’t mean you’re going to ruin your child.”