Screen Time and Brain Development

By Alexis Molineux Gibbons, M.A., CCC-SLP

Today’s world is filled with screens. Most homes contain a variety of smartphones, tablets, laptops, video game consoles and televisions. On average, American households have 17 screened internet connected devices, making them increasingly accessible to children of all ages.

Screen time is not inherently bad, and can support education, creativity and social connection. However, when sleep, physical activity and face to face time with others are impacted by excessive use, children’s health and development can suffer.

Children learn best by exploring their environment and interacting with the people around them. A child’s language, cognitive, physical, psychological and social development is dependent on play. Through play, children develop problem solving skills, improve attention and memory, learn to regulate emotions and interact with others, acquire new vocabulary and improve grammar. Learning through play forms the foundation for academic success and transition in the adult world. We learn to plan and organize, self-control, cognitive flexibility, task initiation and persistence through play. It logically follows that increased screen time equals less play and poorer developmental outcomes.

Research confirms that excessive unregulated screen time does impact brain development and could have long reaching effects. Research into the impact of internet usage and screen time on development and health is relatively new, however preliminary results suggest an association between delayed or impaired development and screen time.

So, how does screen time impact development?

Psychological

Higher amounts of screen time are associated with lower self-esteem, more frequent and severe mental health issues, and addiction. As children’s social lives have moved away from face-to-face interactions and moved more online, rates of anxiety, depression and self-harm have increased.

Language

Research indicates that toddlers who are exposed to more than one hour a day of screen time have poorer language development, both in terms of their understanding of language and their expressive language skills. It was also found that reading frequently to a child may have a buffering effect on language comprehension delays but had little effect on verbal expression. Delayed language acquisition can significantly increase the risk of poor reading/spelling skills, and academic challenges.

Executive Function

Executive function begins to develop between six and twelve months old and continues into our twenties, with full development by age twenty-five. Executive function is essentially the “adult” part of our brain that drives our working memory, goal setting, emotional management, and problem solving. It helps us follow rules, negotiate, self-regulate, plan, organize, multitask, make complex decisions, and to attend to tasks, and provides us with the ability to change our response to challenges as needed (cognitive flexibility). Research has determined that there is a correlation between excessive screen use and impaired executive function in children. Excessive screen time or internet usage has been found to negatively impact emotional regulation, behavior, attention, memory, and other aspects of executive function.

What do the experts say about screen time limits? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) makes the following recommendations for children:

Birth to 18 months: avoid screen time with the exception of video chats with friends and family.

18-24 months: small amounts of high-quality educational programming viewed with an adult to help them understand what they are seeing/ hearing.

2-5 years: one hour per day of high-quality educational content.

For children six and up, the AAP does not provide screen time limits but suggests that parents focus on setting healthy consistent boundaries focusing on content and context, and ensuring that face-to-face social interactions, physical exercise and sleep are not neglected. Evidence has emerged that restrictions focusing on content, co-watching with discussion, and balance between screen time and other activities are associated with better well-being than rules just focused on limiting screen time. They suggest that parents:

Create screen-free times and spaces such as mealtimes, parent-child play times, and bedrooms. Parents should model these restrictions by putting away their devices.

Focus on what kids are doing online, and not just how long they are on screens.

Create a family Media Plan (the AAP has a template on their website).

Make sleep and physical activity a priority. Avoid all screens at least an hour before bed to limit blue light from disrupting sleep cycles.

Avoid relying on screens as the only way to calm children down because it can impact their ability to learn how to regulate their emotions.

How do we evaluate the content of what our children are viewing, or determine if it is “high quality”? The AAP developed the “5 C’s Framework” to assist parents in determining the value of screen time content:

Child: consider your child’s personality and maturity.

Content: choose educational, high quality, age-appropriate content over mindless scrolling.

Context: consider your child’s purpose. Are they connecting with friends, using a screen for entertainment or education, or just “zoning out”?

Co-viewing: use screens as a shared family activity versus an independent one.

Crowding out: ensure that screens aren’t replacing other activities such as playing outside, reading, doing homework, face-to-face interactions or chores.

It is estimated that kids aged two to five spend 2 hours per day on screens, ages five to eight 3.5 hours, ages eight to twelve 5 hours, and teenagers nine or more hours per day. By following recommended guidelines, parents can minimize the impact of screen time on their children’s development, giving them more time for play, exercise, face-to-face interaction and sleep.