Infants should not be exposed to electronic screens, according to new guidelines

The World Health Organization on Wednesday issued tough new guidelines on one of the most daunting problems of family life in the 21st century: how much should parents use online video and games? to entertain, educate or simply distract their young children?

The answer, according to the WHO, is never for children in their first year of life and rarely in their second. According to the International Health Agency, people aged 2 to 4 should not spend more than an hour a day in front of a screen.

The WHO is inspired by the emerging – but not yet settled – science of the risks that screens represent for the development of young minds, while surveys show that children spend more and more time to watch smartphones and other mobile devices. Ninety-five percent of families with children under the age of 8 have a smartphone, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media, and 42% of children under the age of 8 have access to their own Tablet.

Child development experts say that the acquisition of language and social skills, usually interacting with parents and other people, is among the most important cognitive tasks of the child. childhood.

"Achieving health for all means doing what is best for health right from the beginning of people's lives," said the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a statement. . "Early childhood is a period of rapid development and a period during which family lifestyles can be adapted to improve health."

But the guidelines, along with those of other public health groups who have looked at these issues in recent years, also aim to spell out clear rules for the disordered realities of parenting, when they are not. a difficult baby can be quieted more easily by a video of a nursery rhyme, or a distant grandmother from three states can engage with an infant only by Skype.

This disruption means that strict rules sometimes lead to more guilt than useful corrections in parental decisions, said pediatricians and researchers who studied the issue.

"This induces a real conflict," said University of Michigan pediatrician Jenny Radesky, author of the screen guidelines for the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2016. "The more we give of guidelines, more it would seem that there will be more lag between what the experts say … and what it feels like to be a parent every day in the real world. "

Radesky also said that Silicon Valley, which has put in place a number of tools to help parents limit time spent in front of children, could go further by improving these tools and designing services less likely to encourage intensive use by children. Consumer advocates often complain about features that discourage breaks, such as YouTube's default autoplay feature, which claim that tech companies encourage compulsive behavior by children who lack self-control. (YouTube has long claimed that its service was not aimed at under-13s, although surveys show that it is popular among young children.)

The announcement Wednesday by the WHO, the UN Public Health Agency, has put a strain on the increasing willingness to limit the time children spend in front of screens at a time when access to mobile devices is growing fast in the world.

The smart phones, first popularized with the introduction of the iPhone by Apple in 2007, were formerly mostly in rich countries like the United States. But their numbers are now in billions and, along with other mobile devices, is the main Internet portal for most of the world.

On its own, YouTube has a global audience exceeding 2 billion people, prompting calls among consumer advocates for measures to reduce children's exposure, while scientists continue to study Impact of screens on brain development.

"It is extremely important that someone with the authority and the reach of the WHO say that," said Josh Golin of the Campaign for a Free Commercial Childhood, a Boston-based advocacy group. . Time spent in front of the screen, he noted, is "not essential to learning and not effective for teaching".

The WHO rules vaguely agree with those of other public health groups in the United States and elsewhere, who have generally advocated limited viewing time, plentiful personal interaction, and sleep of children. preschool age. The guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics provide an exception to allow video chat for children under 18 months of age and suggest that children under 2 years of age could benefit from occasional viewing of educational videos. But overall, the group said parents should "prioritize creative and unplugged play time for infants and toddlers."

Although scientists and physicians largely agree on the risks of over-testing for children, many also deplore the limitations of existing studies. The long-term consequences may be difficult to measure and ethical concerns preclude experiments in which, for example, one group of infants watches two hours of video per day while a second group plays on the outside or discuss with parents.

There is also a debate about whether all the time on the screen is created equally. Is a video showing other children unboxing toys better or worse than a FaceTime conversation with a traveling parent? Are interactive games better than watching passively?

Research on older children has associated screen time with behavioral and developmental problems. But research on babies and toddlers is inconclusive. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics in January revealed that time spent in front of a screen could delay the linguistic and social skills of toddlers. Another study published this month in Pediatrics has even revealed that parents interact more with their young children when they read printed books than when they read their children's ebooks.

A scientific consensus is beginning to emerge from such research and the observed experiences of psychologists, pediatricians and parents. The WHO guidelines and those of the other groups bear witness to this.

"The top priority for very young children should be about face-to-face interactions, physical exercise and sleep," said Jean Twenge, psychologist and author of "iGen", a 2017 book devoted to the effects of social media and others. technology on children. "I think the temptation to give a phone or tablet to young children whenever they feel like it is misguided.Children need to learn to calm down and manage their emotions." frequently give them these devices, they do not learn these things. "

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) And a group of bipartisan MPs have proposed a bill calling on the National Institutes of Health to conduct a multi-year $ 40-million study on the effects of technology, time spent in front of a screen and online media on infants and children. older children.

"It's important to ensure that children do not spend too much time in front of screens, but we need a comprehensive national discussion on how to ensure the health and well-being of children and adolescents. when their use of technology increases, "said Markey in a statement Wednesday. after the publication of the WHO guidelines.

Stephen Balkam, founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, whose members include industry players in technologies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, said there was a significant difference between "time passed on a "screen and" screen use ".

"What we do not want is to create a situation in which parents feel ashamed of the fact that they use tablets, etc. when cooking, or something like that," he said. Balkam. "It's trying to find a balance."

Emily Oster, professor of economics at Brown University and author of "Cribsheet: A Data-Based Guide for Better and More Relaxed Education," said Emily Oster. But there is not enough convincing evidence, says Oster, to follow the effect of time spent in front of a screen beyond television. Children who have grown up around the iPad, for example, are not old enough for researchers to measure their educational or developmental growth.

"I think people have to look at this and think about the fact that these guidelines are not based on a well-known underlying truth and use their judgment to decide what will work," Oster said. "These ideas that kids are going to be physically active and get enough sleep – that's a good idea, but it's not all on the screens."