Too much screen time for the kids? Grandparents may also be complicit
In the age of high-tech electronics many kids spend about half their visit with grandparents watching videos or playing with apps
July 8, 2019
Science Daily/Rutgers University
Grandparents have long been associated with letting their grandchildren do things their parents would never permit. Candy. Extended bedtime. Too much television. Carefree fun. They like to spoil their grandchildren.
A new study by Rutgers and other researchers finds that today's grandparents are still true to their traditional fun-loving image -- allowing their grandchildren, while under their supervision, to spend about half of their time on a mobile phone, tablet, computer or TV.
The study, published in the Journal of Children and Media, suggests that grandparents should restrict media use by setting simple rules for screen time when babysitting. This is particularly needed when children bring a device from home and expect to watch even more.
"Grandparents play a very significant role in raising their grandchildren. We need to educate them about the impact of media on children's lives and on proper use that will benefit the wellbeing of their grandchildren," said study co-author Dafna Lemish, a distinguished professor of journalism and media studies and associate dean for programs at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's School of Communication and Information.
The study reviewed the experiences of grandparents of children ages 2-7 who take care of their grandchildren at least once per week and found that during an average four-hour visit, the children spent two hours either watching videos or playing games on electronic devices.
Among the findings:
· Many grandparents feel less confident in managing children's use of interactive media, such as games, than in managing their use of non-interactive videos. This may be due to lack of experience with games or apps.
· Some children's parents give the grandparents instructions about how to handle media use. This, ironically, leads to more screen time viewing.
· Grandfathers in the study allowed more interactive screen time than did grandmothers, perhaps because they are more comfortable with the technology.
· On average, grandparents had more difficulty in managing the media use of boys and older children than of girls and younger children. Boys on average spent 17 minutes more than girls with media related activities.
· Grandparents allow more screen time when they care for children in their own homes versus the children's homes. They also allow more screen time when the child brings a tablet or other device from home, as 22 percent of grandchildren do.
· The lowest amount of time dedicated to media use per visit with grandparents was found among children aged 2 to 3, at an average of 98 minutes per visit. Children aged 4 to 5 spent an average of 106 minutes with electronic devices, and children aged 6 to 7 had 143 minutes of screen time, on average per visit.
The study offers the following recommendations:
Grandparents who set strict rules (such as not more than an hour; not before bedtime; not during meals) succeed in reducing their grandchildren's screen time.
Parents should supply toys, games and books to help grandparents keep children busy.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190708154051.htm
Screen time -- even before bed -- has little impact on teen well-being
April 5, 2019
Science Daily/Association for Psychological Science
Data from more than 17,000 teenagers show little evidence of a relationship between screen time and well-being in adolescents. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, casts doubt on the widely accepted notion that spending time online, gaming, or watching TV, especially before bedtime, can damage young people's mental health.
"Implementing best practice statistical and methodological techniques we found little evidence for substantial negative associations between digital-screen engagement and adolescent well-being," said Amy Orben, a Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and College Lecturer at the Queen's College, University of Oxford.
"While psychological science can be a powerful tool for understanding the link between screen use and adolescent well-being, it still routinely fails to supply stakeholders and the public with high-quality, transparent, and objective investigations into growing concerns about digital technologies. Analyzing three different datasets, which include improved measurements of screen time, we found little clear-cut evidence that screen time decreases adolescent well-being, even if the use of digital technology occurs directly before bedtime," said Professor Andrew Przybylski, Director of Research at the OII and coauthor on the study.
The research found that adolescents' total screen time per day had little impact on their mental health, both on weekends and weekdays. It also found that the use of digital screens 2 hours, 1 hour, or 30 minutes before bedtime didn't have clear associations with decreases in adolescent well-being, even though this is often taken as a fact by media reports and public debates.
Unlike other studies, the Oxford research analyzed data from Ireland, the US, and the UK to support its conclusions. The researchers used a rigorous methodology to gather how much time an adolescent spends on screens per day, including both self-reported measures and time-use diaries. This is important as many studies are based solely on self-reported digital technology use, even though recent work found only one third of participants give accurate accounts of how much time they spend online when asked after the fact.
The researchers were also able to create a comprehensive picture of teens' well-being, examining measures of psychosocial functioning, depression symptoms, self-esteem, and mood, with data provided by both young people and their caregivers.
Additionally, the final of the three studies conducted was preregistered, meaning that the researchers publicly documented the analyses they would run before they analyzed the data. This prevents hypothesizing after the results are known, a challenge for controversial research topics.
"Because technologies are embedded in our social and professional lives, research concerning digital-screen use and its effects on adolescent well-being is under increasing scrutiny," said Orben. "To retain influence and trust, robust and transparent research practices will need to become the norm -- not the exception. We hope our approach will set a new baseline for new research on the psychological study of technology," added Przybylski.
The insights come days ahead of the anticipated release of the UK government's new White Paper on Online Harms, which is expected to set out plans for legislation governing social media companies. This new study builds on previous work by Orben and Przybylski that used novel and transparent statistical approaches to show that technology use has a minuscule influence on adolescent well-being.
The study used data from Ireland, the US, and the UK. In Ireland, it covered 5,363 young people tracked under the Growing Up in Ireland project. In the US, the data covered 709 subjects of a variety of ages compiled by the United States Panel Study of Income Dynamics. And in the UK, the dataset included responses from 11,884 adolescents and their caregivers surveyed as part of the Millennium Cohort Study.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190405080922.htm
Reduced screen time for young highly recommended for well-being
October 29, 2018
Science Daily/San Diego State University
A new study indicates that more hours of screen time are associated with lower well-being in those aged 2 to 17, though the association is larger for adolescents than for younger children.
Too much time spent on gaming, smartphones and watching television is linked to heightened levels and diagnoses of anxiety or depression in children as young as age 2, according to a new study.
Even after only one hour of screen time daily, children and teens may begin to have less curiosity, lower self-control, less emotional stability and a greater inability to finish tasks, reports San Diego State University psychologist Jean Twenge and University of Georgia psychology professor W. Keith Campbell.
Twenge and Campbell's results were published in an article, "Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study," which appeared this month in Preventative Medicine Reports.
Twenge and Campbell were particularly interested in associations between screen time and diagnoses of anxiety and depression in youth, which has not yet been studied in great detail.
Their findings provide broader insights at a time when youth have greater access to digital technologies and are spending more time using electronic technology purely for entertainment, and also as health officials are trying to identify best practices for managing technology addiction.
"Previous research on associations between screen time and psychological well-being among children and adolescents has been conflicting, leading some researchers to question the limits on screen time suggested by physician organizations," Twenge and Campbell wrote in their paper.
The National Institute of Health estimates that youth commonly spend an average of five to seven hours on screens during leisure time. Also, a growing body of research indicates that this amount of screen time has adverse effects on the overall health and well-being of youth.
Also timely: the World Health Organization this year decided to include gaming disorder in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. The organization is encouraging "increased attention of health professionals to the risks of development of this disorder" as gaming addiction may now be classified as a disease.
Utilizing National Survey of Children's Health data from 2016, Twenge and Campbell analyzed a random sample of more than 40,300 surveys from the caregivers of children aged 2 to 17.
The nationwide survey was administered by the U.S. Census Bureau by mail and online and inquired about topics such as: existing medical care; emotional, developmental and behavioral issues; and youth behaviors, including daily screen time. Twenge and Campbell excluded youth with conditions such autism, cerebral palsy and developmental delay, as they may have impacted a child's day to day functioning.
Twenge and Campbell found that adolescents who spend more than seven hours a day on screens were twice as likely as those spending one hour to have been diagnosed with anxiety or depression -- a significant finding. Overall, links between screen time and well-being were larger among adolescents than among young children.
"At first, I was surprised that the associations were larger for adolescents," Twenge said. "However, teens spend more time on their phones and on social media, and we know from other research that these activities are more strongly linked to low well-being than watching television and videos, which is most of younger children's screen time."
Among other highlights of Twenge and Campbell's study:
· Moderate use of screens, at four hours each day, was also associated with lower psychological well-being than use of one hour a day.
· Among preschoolers, high users of screens were twice as likely to often lose their temper and 46 percent more likely to not be able to calm down when excited.
· Among teens aged 14-17, 42.2 percent of those who spent more than seven hours a day on screens did not finish tasks compared with 16.6 percent for those who spent one hour daily and 27.7 percent for those engaged for four hours of screen time.
· About 9 percent of youth aged 11-13 who spent an hour with screens daily were not curious or interested in learning new things, compared with 13.8 percent who spent four hours on screen and 22.6 percent who spent more than seven hours with screens.
The study provides further evidence that the American Academy of Pediatrics' established screen time limits -- one hour per day for those aged 2 to 5, with a focus on high-quality programs -- are valid, Twenge said.
The study also suggests that similar limits -- perhaps to two hours a day -- should be applied to school-aged children and adolescents, said Twenge, also author of "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy -- and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood."
In terms of prevention, establishing possible causes and outcomes of low psychological well-being is especially important for child and adolescent populations. "Half of mental health problems develop by adolescence," Twenge and Campbell wrote in their paper.
"Thus, there is an acute need to identify factors linked to mental health issues that are amenable to intervention in this population, as most antecedents are difficult or impossible to influence," they continued. "Compared to these more intractable antecedents of mental health, how children and adolescents spend their leisure time is more amenable to change."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181029150931.htm