From texting with friends to playing video games on the TV to completing homework on the computer, screens have become an inseparable part of many teenagers鈥� daily routine. Although many parents believe they should limit their children鈥檚 time in front of screens, new research suggests it may not be all that bad for them.
recommends children watch television for no more than two hours a day and , until recently, suggested only two hours or less of screen time for children and youth. The AAP updated their guidelines in 2016 to advise parents to limit their children鈥檚 screen time so that it doesn鈥檛 interfere with exercise and sleep.
is attempting to change parents鈥� perspectives on screen use by examining the effects of screen use on adolescents in the U.S.
The study, published in Springer鈥檚 journal Psychiatry Quarterly last week, found that teenagers (aged 12 to 18) using a screen for six or less hours a day were not significantly impacted in other areas of their lives such as their grades, fitness level, mental health or propensity for risky behaviour.
The study鈥檚 lead author Christopher Ferguson from the department of psychology at Stetson University analyzed data from 6,089 teenagers in the , a confidential annual survey funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that monitors adolescent behaviour. The survey asked participants about their screen time, sleep habits, grades, eating patterns, mental health, physical activity and risky behaviours such as fighting at school, carrying weapons, taking drugs and having sex or driving while intoxicated.
Ferguson said the study found that low to moderate screen time of six hours or less didn鈥檛 increase teenagers鈥� risk for negative results.
鈥淎lthough we certainly want to have parents balance their children鈥檚 screen use with exercise, getting adequate sleep, socialization, academics, it doesn鈥檛 look like screen time use is one of the major predictors of behaviour problems in kids,鈥� Ferguson said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca from Florida on Monday.
The research did find that excessive use of more than six hours of screen time a day was related to depression, delinquency and lower grades, but not the other outcomes. However, the study stressed that the negative effects related to excessive screen time were very small and affected males more than females.
鈥淭hose effects were so small that they might be really kind of trivial. The correlations are there but they鈥檙e so tiny they don鈥檛 really tell us much about what really makes kids engage in these kinds of aggressive behaviours or have depression or things like that,鈥� Ferguson explained. More than six hours of screen time only resulted in a 0.49 per cent variance in delinquency, a 1.7 per cent disparity in depressive symptoms and a 1.2 per cent difference in grade point average. There wasn鈥檛 any influence on risky driving, sex, drug abuse or eating disorders.
鈥淎lthough an 'everything in moderation' message when discussing screen time with parents may be most productive, our results do not support a strong focus on screen time as a preventative measure for youth problem behaviors," Ferguson wrote in the study.
The lead author also wrote that imposing unrealistic limits on children鈥檚 screen time may foster guilt in parents unable to meet such guidelines. Ferguson also said that鈥檚 important for children to become 鈥渋ntimately familiar鈥� with screen technologies as they are increasingly embedded in everyday life.
"Setting narrow limits on screen time may not keep up with the myriad ways in which screens have become essential to modern life,鈥� he wrote.
Ferguson added that parents need to be aware that a lot of the time different uses for screens is combined for children. For example, they may be chatting with friends while they鈥檙e working on their homework.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard to pull apart what we might call productive screen use versus entertainment screen use,鈥� he said.
He also stressed that it鈥檚 important for parents to remember that screens really aren鈥檛 as concerning as many other issues affecting adolescents.
鈥淔or the most part, if screens were as bad as people sometimes think, things ought to be a lot worse than they are,鈥� Ferguson said.
