Screen Time Does Not Harm Children’s Health; But Here’s The Catch

There is compelling evidence that spending time in front of a screen is not as harmful as you would believe.

Experts noted that children have more screen time to make more friends. That is because of the relationship-building impacts of online activities such as video games and social networking.

The study, titled "Screen Time and Early Adolescent Mental Health, Academic, and Social Outcomes in 9- And 10- Year Old Children: Utilizing the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ℠ (ABCD) Study," published in the journal PLoS One, revealed no link between screen use and melancholy or anxiety in children.

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Children Spend Hours On Using Gadgets To Make Friends, Study Says

The average number of screen-based digital gadgets owned and utilized by children in Australia has reached 3.3 devices per child, according to The Next Web.

Laptops, smartphones, TVs, tablets, gaming devices, and home computers are among these gadgets. Like those in many Western countries, children spent 3-4 hours a day on a mobile device or watching television, exceeding health norms.

According to surveys, almost all high school kids and two-thirds of elementary school children own a screen-based gadget. At least a third of a child's day is spent looking at a screen.

Researchers said children spend more time on their gadgets due to the relationship-building impacts of online activities such as video games and social networking.

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Here's The Catch

Not all of the findings of the study were entirely beneficial, Inc.com said. The researchers also discovered minor but significant links between children's screen use and poor sleep, attentiveness, mental health, and academic performance. These impacts were not proven to be induced directly by screen usage.

Any link between screen time and various outcomes, whether positive or negative, according to study author Katie Paulich, is so minor that it's unlikely to be clinically significant. According to Paulich, some children scored lower on these outcomes than others, while others scored better. She went on to say that screen time only accounted for 2% of the variance in the results. This shows that numerous factors, not just screen time, contribute to the discrepancies. It's just a sliver of a much bigger picture.

It's also worth mentioning that previous studies have found that youngsters who are subjected to stringent screen time limitations as children struggle more in college since they haven't had the opportunity to regulate their own tech use. Parents should consider swapping schoolwork time for internet time right now and the long-term consequences of micromanaging their children.

More Research Needed For The Study

As the participants reach maturity in the following decade, The Conversation said the study had created the groundwork for adding more comparisons and evidence. It confirmed the impact of SES on children's health and highlighted notable patterns, such as boys reporting higher total screen usage during weekdays and weekends than girls.

Parents and teachers should still exercise caution when it comes to their children's screen time, since the study found links between screen time and several detrimental effects on children's health.

Even though researchers did not recognize the unfavorable consequences as substantial and screen time was not confirmed as the direct cause, a review of the evidence reveals that they cannot rule out these correlations.