The time spent by children in front of screens plays a role in their development, but its effects are limited and depend, above all, on how the tots are exposed to the electronic devices, according to a wide-ranging study published on Wednesday.
It is the context in which screens are used and not just screen time that plays a role in children’s cognitive development, conclude the authors of the study, conducted under the aegis of Inserm and published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
For several years now, children’s overexposure to screens – computers, smartphones, televisions – has given rise to a wave of alarmism among several political leaders as well as some carers, who see it as a serious threat - to the point, for some, of suggesting a link with autism.
However, the scientific consensus is much more measured. The study by Inserm (the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research), adds to other work that puts the problems associated with screen use in itself into perspective and places them in a wider context.
This is a ‘cohort’ study, a type of research that allows very solid conclusions to be drawn. In such studies, a large group of people – in this case 14,000 children – are followed for years.
The researchers assessed the children at three ages: two, three-and-a-half, and five-and-a-half years old. They concluded that there was a “limited” link between screen use and intellectual development.
Admittedly, “at ages 3.5 and 5.5, screen exposure time was associated with poorer overall cognitive development scores, particularly in the areas of fine motor skills, language and autonomy,” Inserm noted in a press release.
However, when lifestyle factors likely to influence cognitive development were taken into account (….), the negative relationship was reduced and became one of low magnitude, the institute explained.
In other words, it is not so much the presence of screens that influences children’s development as when and how they watch them.
For example, the children studied appeared to suffer clearly from frequently watching television with their respective families during meals.
“By capturing the attention of family members, television interferes with the quality and quantity of interactions between parents and children,” epidemiologist Shuai Yang, lead author of the study, argued in the press release. “Yet this is crucial, at this age, for language acquisition.”
