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ADVERTISEMENTChildren who spend too much time on screens are more likely to develop emotional and behavioural problems – and those issues may prompt them to retreat further into the digital world, a new study has found.
Parents and educators have long worried that screen time may affect children’s well-being, particularly as smartphones, tablets, and gaming devices become more embedded in daily life, and it becomes more difficult for parents to set limits.
Now, new research spanning nearly 293,000 children is homing in on exactly how excessive screen time affects kids’ moods and behaviour – and how parents can break the “vicious cycle” of screen time and child health.
“Children are spending more and more time on screens, for everything from entertainment to homework to messaging friends,” Michael Noetel, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor at Queensland University in Australia, said in a statement.
The research, a meta-analysis of 117 studies published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, focused on kids aged 10 or younger.
It tracked their use of social media, video games, TV watching, and online homework, and measured issues like aggression, anxiety, and low self-confidence.
It found that kids with more screen use were at higher risk of both externalising problems – such as hitting, kicking, yelling, screaming, and challenging adults – as well as internalising issues, such as avoiding conflict, withdrawing from others, or falling into despair.
These children, in turn, were more likely to turn to screens, possibly as a coping mechanism, the study found.
Differences between boys and girls
Girls were more likely to develop emotional and behavioural problems after increased screen use, while boys were more likely to turn to screens as a way of dealing with those issues.
Some online activities appeared to be more harmful than others. The study found a stronger link between gaming and emotional or behavioural issues – but it did not find any added risk from exposure to violent content.
Notably, the researchers did not decisively prove that screen time causes emotional or behavioural problems, but rather show that the two issues are related.
“It’s about as close as we can get to causal evidence without randomly cutting screens for thousands of kids,” Noetel said.
“But still, we can’t completely rule out other factors – like parenting style – that could influence both screen use and emotional problems”.
The results underscore “the need for a nuanced approach to managing children’s screen time,” Roberta Vasconcellos, the study’s lead author and a lecturer at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said in a statement.
The findings help make the case for screen time guidelines for children, the researchers said. But they said these guidelines should go beyond just limiting time, and also consider the quality of the content and the nature of kids’ social interactions online.
They also said screen time guidelines should discourage kids from spending too much time on higher-risk activities such as gaming.
