Most toddlers spend excessive time watching screens, study shows

Nov. 25 (UPI) -- When it comes to time spent on handheld devices, kids learn from their parents -- and they're spending way too much time on them.

That's the what the authors of a new study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, describe as the take-home message of their analysis of trends in "screen time" among children two and three years of age.

The researchers found the vast majority of young people in these age groups -- nearly 80 percent of two-year-olds and nearly 95 percent of three-year-olds -- were spending more time watching television or videos on handheld devices than recommended by groups such as the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"The large majority of pre-schoolers are not meeting the screen use recommendations and screen time appears to be a family affair," study co-author Sheri Madigan, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Alberta Children's Hospital Research, told UPI. "When parent screen use is high, we can expect that child screen use is high as well."

Guidelines written by the WHO and others generally recommend one hour of "high-quality programming" per day for children between two and five years of age.

Screen time for children is significant given its impact on development, according to Madigan. In earlier research, she and her team documented that excessive screen use among pre-schoolers led to "delayed achievement of... developmental milestones."

In that paper, they also found that two- and three-year-old children averaged 2.4 hours and 3.6 hours of screen time per day, respectively.

Both this earlier work and the most recent findings were based on an analysis of more than 4,000 children included in the All Our Families study. Participants in the study all live in the province of Alberta in western Canada. However, Madigan noted, the findings are "consistent with research conducted in the U.S. and the U.K."

Madigan said the study, which reinforces widely held concerns of parents and non-parents, suggests families spell out when, where and how often screens are used by members of a household. She also suggests people carve out device-free family time to prioritize and motivate face-to-face interactions.

"It appears that very few children or teenagers worldwide are meeting the screen time guidelines," Madigan said, adding that the study "speaks to the importance of not just telling parents about the screen time guidelines, but finding effective ways of implementing the guidelines."