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There is a lot missing here. Without paying £30 I cannot see what the adjustments in the adjusted models are.
There is no breakdown for different ages. Its very likely that the effect on a one year old and an eight year old would be very different.
There is no breakdown of what they are watching.
A whole of of confounding variables. Screen time is inevitably going to be associated with less adult attention which is known to be a major factor in development. Lots of others.
"Screen viewing" seems very vague. What did they do with their screens? Did they read an encyclopedia, or did they watch entertainment content videos? It's an important distinction.
We’re having this sort of conversation at the school that I work at, which serves remote communities and other disadvantaged students. One of our states is currently making noise about reducing “screen time” for schools without much distinction about what it involves.
And here’s us, an online only school that serves kids that otherwise wouldn’t be able to access education at all or some types of classes at best, left wondering where that might leave us if our state decides to zombie its way into similar policy decisions.
Edit: Downvotes for pointing out that government policies without nuance around what "screen time" means hurts kids who have no alternative education options, apparently?
Small nit: I don't think most of these "reduce screen time" pushes are aimed at instructional use, they're usually targeting recreational/non-academic screen time in policy language. Doesn't mean it won't get applied dumbly to schools like yours though, which is the real worry.
Not encyclopedia vs cartoons - point is nobody tracks content type, just clock minutes. Study lumping Ms. Rachel in with iPad games in with autoplay YouTube junk tells you nothing about mechanism, just correlation with something.
Yeah, I admit I didn't click through and read the methods so it's possible they did what was necessary, but off the top of my head, you would need to do your best to model:
1. Parents' own socioeconomic status
2. Parents' educational attainment
3. Parents' working memory (since this is one of the measures, and it's somewhat heritable)
Directly mapping screen time with academic performance is difficult to correlate. Like the article shows that age 1 has the strongest association, but I feel at a very early age like 1, screen time is not in your(toddler's) hands and slowly, as age grows, kids become habitual. It like the impact is not linear.
Also, I think the type of content kids consume can tell us more about the performance, because IMO, long form content can have a different impact than short form.
It's an interesting study to follow and if anyone has access to the raw data, I would be really interested in looking into it.
Given the negative social perception of screen time, wouldn't the parents be motivated to report lower than actual numbers? Furthermore, this is one population (Singapore) and doesn't detail (at least not in the summary) how screen time varied from day to day (eg my children have substantially less screen time on school days, than weekends. Screen time in both cases tends to be biased towards breakfast time, when the house is a bit manic, or after significant periods of outdoor/energetic activity when everyone needs a rest.)
Shouldn't the title be changed to the conclusion? "Screen viewing time from age 1 to 8 years associated with lower academic performance, but not working memory"
A lot of new parents in my family are simply not giving any screen to kids until they are much older. The only exception is using it to play some brainrot to get them to eat if it's turning out to be a particularly difficult meal. Most of the time though, they're shown the birds or the clouds or something.
It works well, but I see one 11 year old watching YouTube sometimes, so I guess that's about when you just can't avoid it anymore. None of them have their own devices though.
In this longitudinal study, cumulative average screen viewing time was associated with lower academic performance but not working memory, with the strongest effect sizes seen for single screen viewing time occurring in early infancy.
Cumulative average exposure models showed that screen viewing time over childhood was consistently associated with poorer academic performance but not working memory.
Probably lot to see in the details about cause and correlation but could certainly be used to confirm that "screens" doesn't make children stupid. Just lazy or impatient at most.
But difference between passive screen like tv and active like smartphone would have been interesting also.
Nintendo Power Glove logic. Swiping ain't cognition. Difference is scrolling vs typing — infinite scroll trains zero skill, texting/coding at least builds output. Lumped "smartphone" hides that split same as lumping Atari with a C64.
Interesting. I have bad hopes for the data on children growing up with AI, which makes it easy to never apply critical thinking and finding own solutions.
That's the silver lining regarding how poor Siri works on my HomePods. I'm not sure I want my kids get perfect advice from AI, but I do want them to be able to get it somehow.
I can understand that, but a few things that are reassuring.
Screen time is not that new a problem. Kids have been put in front of the TV since the 70s or 80s. When my older daughter was born two decades ago people said we could not do without the "electronic babysitter". We did not. I have never owned a TV in my adult life and I think it was very good with my kids (who are now adults).
Are you forced to let young kids use screens and can you control how? My kids had desktop computers in family areas to start with (and not at the age of one!), educational software (GCompris for example). Later they got ebook readers and non-smart phones, and smart phones (with rules about usage and what apps could be installed) later.
A lot of the issues are parents who cannot put their devices down. You do not need to keep your kids entertained as much if you interact with them. For example, if the adults sitting down to a meal are on their phones, they they need something to keep the kids quiet. if you talk to them, you do not. It also means you can teach them how to behave in places like restaurants.
I think the root problem is not the kids, its adults' addictions to devices leading them to neglect kids.
I remember that time. A mix of concerns over financial security, what kind of parent I'd be, and what I would do in the alone times where help isn't available and it all came down to me. We were young college kids in love and scared out of our minds.
19 years later, the adventure continues. Becoming what you think is an adult, what I would say is someone who knows what to do in scary moments as well as someone who can plan ahead and execute that plan, is always a work in progress. No one will ever know your kid during their childhood better than you. Treat advice, including this advice, like its a jacket to try on. Maybe it fits and you like it. Maybe not. You're under no obligation to accept it.
When you do introduce some video, which is easy to slip into around 18 months, there is tons of good stuff.
Stillwater, Shape Island, Slumberkins, Interrupting Chicken, Not a Box, Duck and Goose, Frog and Toad, Get Rolling with Otis and Snoopy are all on Apple TV.
Tumble Leaf, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Creative Galaxy, Stinky and Dirty, Fireman Sam Classic are on Prime.
PBS still exists for now.
Caitie's Classroom / Super Simple is on Youtube, Prime, and Spotify.
We put screens in front of our kid when we needed 20 minutes to ship something. That's just reality when both parents work. Kid's fine, curious, reads above grade level. Worry less about the screen, more about what you're doing together the rest of the day.
What's missing from most of this literature -- and I haven't seen this study's supplementary tables so can't confirm it's different here -- is a plausible mechanism separating screen exposure from reverse causation, where kids already showing attention or language delays get parked in front of screens more. Longitudinal design helps but doesn't fully solve it.
Though I admit I'm privileged by living in Norway and don't have to work crazy hours to make ends meet.