Screen time at age 1 linked to lower academic performance at age 9
Screen viewing time from age 1 to 8 years and subsequent academic performance
A longitudinal study of 502 Singaporean children found that more screen time at ages 1, 1.5, and 6 was associated with poorer academic performance at age 9, and screen time at ages 1 and 6 with poorer working memory at 10.5. Cumulative screen time across childhood was linked to lower academic performance but not working memory, with the strongest effects for early infancy.
In this longitudinal study, cumulative average screen viewing time was associated with lower academic performance but not working memory, with the strongest effect sizes seen for single screen viewing time occurring in early infancy.
- magicalhippo
An average of two hours of screen time at age 1 seems insane to me. Should be measured in seconds as far as I'm concerned.
Though I admit I'm privileged by living in Norway and don't have to work crazy hours to make ends meet.
- graemep
There is a lot missing here. Without paying £30 I cannot see what the adjustments in the adjusted models are.
There is no breakdown for different ages. Its very likely that the effect on a one year old and an eight year old would be very different.
There is no breakdown of what they are watching.
A whole of of confounding variables. Screen time is inevitably going to be associated with less adult attention which is known to be a major factor in development. Lots of others.
- apopapo
"Screen viewing" seems very vague. What did they do with their screens? Did they read an encyclopedia, or did they watch entertainment content videos? It's an important distinction.
- BartShoot
I guess that's hard to measure, higher screen time could be correlated with less caregiving from parents - screen will not teach them.
- shymaple
Directly mapping screen time with academic performance is difficult to correlate. Like the article shows that age 1 has the strongest association, but I feel at a very early age like 1, screen time is not in your(toddler's) hands and slowly, as age grows, kids become habitual. It like the impact is not linear.
Also, I think the type of content kids consume can tell us more about the performance, because IMO, long form content can have a different impact than short form.
It's an interesting study to follow and if anyone has access to the raw data, I would be really interested in looking into it.