Screen time Affects Younger Ones Growth
The Impact of Screen Time on Children’s Linguistic Development. Age-appropriate screen time recommendations & its potential adverse effects.
Children must not be blamed here. When their parents have given them the devices to distract them from crying or a well-deserved break. Like always, there are two sides to a coin. The popular opinion is that screening for a younger child is wrong, but it has its benefits, too.
For example, Many parents are using the screes as an educational tool. So, it’s necessary to differentiate between active and passive screen time and see what is hazardous and what is not.
Let’s break it down into points –
Active Screen time: here, children engage in educational or interactive content, which can benefit learning and language development. For instance, learning a poem or letter or even alphabets.
Passive Screen Time: children do mindless scrolling or watching random videos with high-decibel sounds or weird noises. Those videos might be detrimental.
Thus, for a better understanding of the screen time allotted time to your precious one, let’s brief them on the following ages:
- 0-2 Years: It is widely recommended that children under the age of 2 should not have any screen time. This is because children might start developing the adverse impact of screen time, primarily on language development, from an early age.
- 2-4 Years: For children of this age group, it is recommended to have 28 minutes of active hand-held screen time. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends at most 1 hour a day of high-quality programming for this age group. But the parents should monitor it.
The studies show that an additional 30% of screen usage can delay expressive speech in 45% of children. Still, it can vary depending on individual children and their exposure to the screen.
Impact of screen time can have adverse effects on child development. Some of these effects include –
- Prolonged screen exposure limits social interaction, so babies find it difficult to express themselves verbally. In return, they will begin shouting or crying uncontrollably or exhibiting attention-seeking behaviours.
- Babies are great mimic artists, primarily learning by copying the adults surrounding them. Thus, longer hand-held screen exposure means lesser chances of mimicking the parents and copying words and sounds.
- Excessive screen time may lead to overstimulation and fragmented attention in babies. Thus potentially reducing their capabilities to focus and engage in learning experiences.
- Research also shows that excessive screen time can delay achieving language and speech milestones. For example, saying first words or combining fewer letters to form words.
- Not only are younger children facing the drawbacks, but long screen exposure, even in older children, can negatively affect academic performance, etc
Summary
Hence, screens are a part of modern life. Besides neglecting use as an educational tool. However, parents should be mindful of the duration and content. Balance is crucial to acknowledge that screens don’t adversely affect the baby’s health.
So, if you want your child to stand out, then explore our program.