By Alexander Willis
Kids can spend hours on screens. Screen usage may harm a child’s development and cause weight and sleep issues. Except for video chatting with adults, under-18-month-olds shouldn’t use screens. 18–24-month-olds should watch high-quality videos with an adult, and two to five-year-olds should limit screen time to one hour. Schoolchildren need rules too.
What Is Screen Time?
Screen time is when a youngster watches a screen. Examples are watching TV, playing video games, and using a computer, phone, or tablet.
It adds up fast: You may not think twice about letting your kid play with your phone or read a book on your tablet, and it’s tempting to post hilarious YouTube videos or charming images on Instagram. Your child may use gadgets or games they don’t have at home, at school, or on playdates.
Do Video Chats With Family Count As Screen Time?
Even through a screen, interacting with loving people helps young toddlers develop social skills. Due to COVID-19 limits, it’s helped youngsters establish contacts with distant relatives. Video chats with distant relatives and friends are allowed.
Consider strategies to engage your kids during those important talks. Set up frequent video chats with faraway relatives and prepare by having your kids produce something to display and speak about or ask them what they may ask.
Screen Time For Kids
Ideal parenting isn’t always realistic. Too much screen time indeed has negative effects, but giving your kid a screen to quiet or divert them when bored or restless robs them of the chance to learn how to deal with and overcome boredom or emotional pain.
However, if you’re working from home and your kid has hit their daily watching limit, it’s OK to let them watch more while you complete your Zoom conference. It’s fair to allow a few additional miles after your child has hit their screen-watching and automobile-riding limits while on vacation.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises children:
Under 18 months: No screen usage, save for video chatting with an adult.
18–24 months: Adult-supervised, high-quality programming/apps. Solo-watching discouraged.
2–5 years: 1 hour of screen time each day. Co-viewing is advised. Interactive, non-violent, instructive, prosocial viewing is ideal.
5+: Limit media and screen time every day. Share media with your kid. Teach your kids internet safety and respect for others.
How Much Screen Time Is Common?
Common Sense Media reports that children under eight watch 2.5 hours of screen media every day:
49 minutes for under-2s
2–4-year-olds watch 2.5 hours.
5–8-year-olds spend over three hours on screens.
However, about a quarter of children under eight don’t watch any screen media. In contrast, almost a quarter spend over four hours daily on screens. Child screen time:
73% TV/video watching
16% gaming
3%
Video-chatting 1% assignment
6% other/unknown
Parents worry about too much digital media for kids, from streaming movies to games and instructional tools. Experts increasingly highlight that how youngsters use devices is as essential as how much they use them.
The Downsides Of Too Much Screen Time
Too much screen time is bad for youngsters. Here are several major issues.
Social, emotional, and behavioral development
Screen time’s effects on development are parents’ primary concern, and rightly so. Kids on screens lose out on socializing with parents, adults, and peers.
Screen use is linked to hyperactivity, impulsivity, and poor decision-making in youngsters. Too much TV in infancy and preschool hinders thinking, language, and social abilities. Children may act out after seeing violent stuff because they’re scared or copying it.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) studied more than 4,500 preteens. They discovered that those who spent more than two hours a day on screens performed worse on language and cognitive tests. Over seven hours causes premature cortical thinning (the brain’s outer layer, which processes sensory information).
