One of the inevitable things that has occurred in recent times is the omnipresence of screens in our home! Digitalization, pandemic and our needs have brought us close to as many screens at home as possible. But anything in excess, is harmful and so is digitalization. The demon of Screen Time has started affecting our lives, as adults, as parents and as children too!! Kids are now being exposed to screen as young as 4-month-old of age. The reasons for using screens for kids are as babysitting tool, entertainment, for feeding meals and for informative purposes too. There are other reasons also, like to prevent a tantrum, or to end a tantrum; to distract a child from an unwanted demand, or the last resort to keep the child busy in a pandemic-stricken home, where both parents are working, they also need to manage daily chores and child has nowhere to go!!!!!!
Even though, we have started using screens for various valid reasons, the impact these screens have are not good for our children. We need to regulate the screen exposure to our kids. For this we need to know the effects of screen time.
There are potential benefits and risks of screen time affecting the development, psychosocial and physical domains of children. Firstly, lets focus on the risks of screen time:
1. Language Development:
For language development, first two years of life are the most crucial years for the child!! The more stimulation child gets in this time, the more diverse is the language development of this child. However, exposing the child during these two years to screens including background TV has a negative impact on the language development.
Because Babies do not absorb content from TV which is presented to them in 2D format as compared to the 3D format, when we interact with the baby in person. Infants may imitate some of the specific actions seen on the nursery rhymes between 6 and 14 months, they might even remember brief sequences of the rhymes like head, shoulder, knee and toes etc by 18 months, but they actually begin to understand content on these screens by the end of their second year only. So, all the nursery rhymes, songs shown to the baby were a waste of precious time which we as parents could have spent in one-to-one interaction in ‘Motherese’ or ‘Infant directed speech’ i.e., high pitched but slow speech so that the baby absorbs our facial movements when we speak to him or her and learns from that.Â
The infants and toddlers are having difficulty transferring new learning from a 2D representation of screen to a 3D object in real life and hence are unlikely to learn from TV and other screens in this age group.
Also, the sound effects and animation can interfere with story comprehension and event sequencing, thus ultimately leading to no benefit to the child’s development. In mobile videos and songs, infants are exposed to too many stimuli like light, sound, movement and hence are unable to grasp anything out of it. Hence, these children exposed to screens at tender ages of 6-18months have the risk of significant language and communication delays!
And hence, considering the tremendous impact of screen time on children, World Health Organization and American Academy of Paediatrics have formed Screen Time Guidelines. According to these guidelines, no screen time is recommended up to 2 years of age; and for children 2-5 years of age not more than total 1 hour of adult directed screen time in a day is recommended i.e., screen time with involvement of the parents, thus making it an interactive watching instead of passive viewing.
There is a delay in achieving motor milestones like walking, running, climbing stairs etc because of reduced opportunities for outdoor play or physical activity as the child is engaged more on screens!
 In older kids, lack of outdoor play shows its impact on the motor coordination refinement of fine motor abilities of the children!
Screen time has a long-term consequence, majorly affecting school age children and teenagers in the physical domain. These children along with TV watching, mobile videos are also into gaming and internet usage and thus spend more time with the screens. This leads to decrease in physical activity and they are more likely to turn into a ‘couch potato’. Thus, exposure to screens promotes sedentary behaviours and compromises the much-needed physical activity in these fast-growing children.
3. Nutrition:
Toddlers who are given screens while feeding are just gulping the food while being engrossed in the screen and hence do not have interest in the food- its texture, colour, taste etc.! Also, the child doesn’t develop understanding of one’s own satiety and hunger as he or she is forced fed while watching videos!
Feeding while watching screens also affects the chewing abilities of the child, child just keeps the morsel in his mouth as he/she is engrossed in the video, child has to be reminded to chew and then swallow! If this continues, child becomes dependent on parents for feeding, doesn’t eat Tiffin in school and is lacking self-help skills of feeding self! This eventually affects the nutrition of the child!
Spending time on screens also exposes children to commercial advertisements with alluring depictions of unhealthy foods like chips, chocolate, soda etc, thus encouraging unhealthy snacking habits. This ultimately leads to increased calorie intake which coupled with decreased physical activity increases the risk of obesity. Obesity if present in childhood is likely to continue in adulthood too, thus making prone to hypertension, diabetes and other lifestyle diseases.
4.Cognitive Development:
Screen time also affects the cognitive development of the child by altering short term memory skills, reading and math skills. Children with more screen time have difficulty in idea generation, it hampers their creativity and imaginative thinking.
5. Impaired Parent Child Interactions:
In today’s world, as we can observe, our own use of mobile technology demands more intense attention than other activities like reading a book or watching TV. In such situations, we are so engrossed in it, that we are unable to engage in one-to-one interaction with the family members. Smart phones blur the line between work and home life, the time consumed on the devices is unpredictable and responding often requires emotional investment. For parents, shifting attention between screens and family life can be stressful, tiring and reduces their ability to interact ‘in the moment’ with children. When parents and child both are busy in screens, the quality and the amount of parent child interaction decreases leading lower level of involvement of parents and reduced stimulation for the child from parents.
There is a strong association between parents’ screen time and that of their children. As parents are also busy in screens, there is lack of positive role model for the children when they are told not to spend time with screens!! Hence, there is chance of increase in conflicts between parents and child and thus increasing negative interactions and affecting family bonding!
6. Effect on Sleep:
The amount of time spent viewing screens before bedtime is associated with an increase in sleep problems. The volume of screen time as well as the content is detrimental to sleep patterns.
The light exposure on the screens reduces melatonin secretion- the sleep-inducing hormone in our body, leading to disrupted sleep, reduced sleep quality and duration. And if a child doesn’t have good sleep, then is likely to have behaviour problems in daytime when awake; thus, forming a vicious cycle.
7, Effect on Behaviour and Psychosocial wellbeing:
Excess of screen time exposure from an early age leads to hyperactivity, inattention, aggressive behaviour and anger outburst.
As child spends more time indoors and less with peers and playmates, there is decreased socialization, which leads to lack of social skills too; child doesn’t understand how to behave in social situations, doesn’t learn to agree with disagreements, develops temper tantrums, has difficulty in planning, coordination and execution of thought into behaviours; thus, provoking anti-social behaviour and leads to social isolation.
A recent study found that excessive screen time leads to rewiring of the still developing brain leading to permanent changes in brain which promote anxiety, fear, depression, addiction, poor mental wellbeing, increased aggression and violent behaviour.
 A child spending hours together on mobile games and videos promoting violence has difficulty in self-regulation when moving around real world and dealing with real people and real life situations! Â
This negative impact on the overall development and psycho social wellbeing of the child leads to lack of school readiness in the child impacting his or her school life which can ultimately affect the personality and mental well-being of these children as an individual.
However, every side has two coins. And hence, if we have a regulated use and exposure of screens to our children, then we can enjoy the potential benefits of screen.
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