Children's development linked to amount of screen time

Two-year-old children who spend a lot of time in front of gadgets and TV screens know fewer words than their peers. This was reported by The Telegraph with reference to fresh data obtained by scientists.

The study was commissioned by the UK government and was the country's first major analysis of the link between children's screen time and language development. The work involved scientists from Oxford and Cambridge universities, as well as University College London.

It found that the average two-year-old child in Britain spends more than two hours watching TV, tablets or smartphones every day, twice the World Health Organisation's recommendations. However, children who spend about five hours a day on screens know significantly fewer words on average than their peers with less than an hour of screen time.

The authors of the study determined the threshold after which the negative effect becomes especially noticeable. According to their data, after just 86 minutes a day, the connection between prolonged screen use and vocabulary loss increases dramatically. During testing, children were tested on their knowledge of 34 words. Those who spent the most time on screens had about four fewer words in vocabulary.

In addition, scientists have documented a connection between more screen time and behavioral difficulties, the publication writes. Possible emotional and behavioral problems were observed in nearly 40% of children with the highest screen time, while the rate was almost half as high among children with limited device use.

The study also revealed social inequality. Thus, children from less affluent families spent significantly more time in front of screens than their peers from higher-income families, and were less likely to receive regular reading from their parents.

At the same time, as The Telegraph writes, Britain is not yet ready to follow the path of Australia, where at the end of last year restrictions were introduced on the use of social networks by children under 16 years of age. British authorities say they prefer to develop guidelines for parents rather than introduce outright bans.