Piush Mandhane, an associate professor of pediatric respiratory medicine and his team from the University of Alberta conducted a study on five-year-olds who had less than 30 minutes of screen time and preschoolers who had more than two hours of screen time. The research concluded that the latter are more likely to develop behavioral problems.
Childhood screen time has increased at an alarming speed over the years and has always been associated with unhealthy dietary patterns, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and poor sleep quality in children.
The new Canadian 24-hour Movement Guidelines recommended in 2016 that children between the ages 2-5 should have less than two hours of screen time per day, and those aged two years old should be limited to less than an hour per day of screen time. It has been approximated that children between the ages of three to five from Canada are exposed to a regular of two hours of screen time per day.
Screen time includes watching TV, movies, computers, video games, phones, and tablets.
Excess screen time causes behavioral problems in young kids
It is also possible that screen time may expand with age and even fewer children will adhere to the recommended two hours of screen time per day. The induction of technology in classrooms will justify future investigations about associations between long periods of screentime and behavioral problems. How the kinds of media viewed and consumed are being connected to mental health effects is not much known about. Also, either screen content is disadvantageous or is the cause of less activity and social interaction.
The study concludes that increased use of social media platforms, social apps and the screen time, in general, have huge differential effects on mental health outcomes in children. Mandhane said commenting the study that the conclusion warns people of a big problem regarding their children’s behavioral problems, as well as an increase in ADHS symptoms’ cause.
For the parents who are wondering what their children could do instead of spending time on the internet, Mandhane found a solution: children engaging in different kinds of organized sport for two or more hours per week had much less behavioral symptoms, he said.
