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LONDON (AP) – The World Health Organization (WHO) has released for the first time an indication of how much children under five should spend on the screen: not much, not at all for those under 1 year old.
The UN health agency said on Wednesday that children under the age of 5 should not spend more than an hour watching screens every day – and that less is better.
The guidelines are somewhat similar to the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics. This group recommends children under 18 months to avoid screens other than video chats. Parents of young children under two should choose a "high quality program" with educational value that can be viewed by a parent to help children understand what they see.
Some groups said that the WHO guidelines on screen time did not take into account the potential benefits of digital media.
The WHO board in terms of screen time "focuses too much on the amount of screen time and ignores the content and context of use," said Andrew Przybylski, director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute of Oxford University. "All screen times are not created equal."
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health of Britain stated that the available data were too weak to allow its experts to set thresholds for the appropriate level of control time.
"Our research has shown that currently there is not enough solid evidence to support the setting of control timelines," said Dr. Max Davie, Head of Health Enhancement. to college. "The limited selection times suggested by WHO do not seem proportionate to the potential damage," he said.
The WHO did not elaborate on the potential damage caused by too long screen time, but said the guidelines – which also included recommendations for physical activity and sleep – were needed to combat increasing number of sedentary behaviors in the general population. He noted that physical inactivity was one of the major risk factors for death and contributed to the increase in obesity.
The agency said that infants under one year old should spend at least half an hour each day on the belly and that older children should do at least three hours of physical activity each day.
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