Children in the United States are getting more and more mobile screen time these days, which raises quite a few health concerns. Although the overall screen time that children get per day has stayed around the same since 2001, a recent Common Sense Media report shows that the amount of mobile screen time kids get has more than tripled in the last four years.
According to a CNN article, the founder and chief executive officer of Common Sense Media, James Steyer said, “What’s changed is how they’re using it [media]… Mobile is totally taking over — it now makes up 35% of screen time, compared to 4% in 2011.” Steyer says that mobile devices are becoming just as common as televisions, with 98% of households with kids eight and under having a mobile device.
Image Source: Donald Iain Smith
An article published by the Canadian Pediatric Society describes how watching television can have both positive and negative effects. On the one hand, educational programs, such as Sesame Street, teach toddlers “valuable lessons about racial harmony, cooperation, kindness, simple arithmetic and the alphabet.” However, watching television also takes away time from other beneficial activities like reading, schoolwork, spending time with friends and family, and exercising. Excessive television watching can also contribute to poor academic performance, less sleep, lower physical fitness, and a higher BMI. TV can also play a large role in causing teenage girls to develop eating disorders because many girls attempt to look like actors and actresses on TV. In addition, the amount of violence being displayed on television is rising rapidly, and many studies have found that “exposure to heavy doses of television violence increases aggressive behavior, particularly in boys.”
Television usage also has important implications for sexual behavior since teens rank television as the number one source they get information about sex. Alcohol and tobacco usage are also advertised in a “carefree” way, which can lead to increased usage in children that are susceptible to such messages. Considering this, it is evident that advertisements can have many harmful effects on children. However, it might also indicate that watchers could benefit greatly if television programs and advertisements chose to instead promote positive, healthy behaviors.
According to an article in Psychology Today, “When a young child spends too much time in front of a screen and not enough getting required stimuli from the real world, her development becomes stunted.” Dr. Aric Sigman, a fellow of the British Psychological Society, also agrees about the issues surrounding young children and increased media time: “The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary—all those abilities are harmed.”
In the article, Dr. Jenny Radesky, a professor of developmental-behavioral pediatrics at the University of Michigan, says that for kids under 15 months of age, “It’s fine to Skype… and fine to look at pictures or videos together… I tell parents not to stress if they… need to put their older infant in front of PBS for 20 minutes while they do the dishes — but keep it short, understand the realities that media is not educational at this age, and avoid a lot of background TV when no one’s watching.”
Feature Image Source: TV by Ben Boldt
