[ad_1]
EDMONTON – LIVING – Do your children spend too much time in front of their video screens? From television to video games, via Youtube, more and more Canadian children spend a lot of time in front of their screens.
Is this a good thing? A new Canadian study of more than 2,400 families suggests that preschoolers spend two or more hours per day being screened for clinically significant behavioral problems.
Compared to children who had less than 30 minutes per day of projection, children exposed to more than two hours of screening per day were five times more likely to have clinically significant "outside" behavioral problems, such as inattention. ; and more than seven times more likely to meet the criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
The study, which was published today in the journal PLOS ONE, was led by Piush Mandhane, associate professor of pediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Toronto. 39; Alberta.
"We found that the time spent in front of a screen had a significant impact at five years," said Mandhane. "Current Canadian guidelines do not include more than two hours of screening per day at this age. But our research suggests that it is still better to spend less time on the screen. "
The research used data from the CHILD Cohort Study, a national birth cohort study that collects a wide range of information on the health, lifestyle, genetics and environment of nearly 3,500 children and their families from pregnancy to adolescence. Mandhane runs the Edmonton site of the CHILD Cohort Study.
Parents reported the total screen time of their children per day, including watching television and DVDs, and using computers, video consoles, smartphones, and tablets. On average, three-year-olds spent an hour and a half on the screen a day; for 42% of three-year-olds, the viewing time was longer than Canada's recommended Canadian recommendation of less than one hour per day. At age five, children spent an average of 1.4 hours per day on screen; for 13% of five-year-olds, listening time exceeded the Canadian recommendation of less than two hours per day.
The study also assessed children's behavior and attention at age five by asking parents to complete the Children's Behavior Checklist (CBCL), a screening measure for a variety of issues such as anxiety and depression, emotional reactivity, inattention, aggression and sleep disorders.
"Before that, there was not a lot of data out there that asked the following questions:" How much is it? Are the guidelines appropriate? In the end, limiting the time spent in front of a screen during the preschool years will have beneficial effects on the development of the child. "This study brings some of these answers to parents," added Sukhpreet Tamana, first author of the study, University of Alberta.
"The two main conclusions of this study are that children exposed to more time in front of a screen, whether they are three or five years old, have significantly more behavioral and attention problems at five years of age and that this association is greater than any other risk factor we assessed, including sleep, parental stress, and socio-economic factors, "added Tamana.
Researchers have also identified factors that provide protection from the negative effects of time spent in front of a screen. Good quality sleep had a limited impact, while participation in organized sports had a very significant protective effect.
"Interestingly, it was not a physical activity in itself that was protective; the activity was to be structured, "said Mandhane. "And the more children spent time in organized sports, the less likely they were to have behavioral problems."
"Very early on, organized activities are very important for young children," Tamana said. "This paves the way for development in children. I think that instead of spending time on screen, it would be beneficial for parents to increase structured business opportunities. "
The study was unable to determine whether media content (education, video games, social media) or screen type (television, computer, tablet) were important predictors of behavioral problems, although team plans to examine these issues in more detail in future research.
Although researchers suggest that "less, it's more" when it's time to spend time in front of the preschoolers, they do not advocate to eliminate it completely.
"Our data suggests that between zero and 30 minutes a day is the optimal amount of screen time," said Mandhane. "The preschool period is a great time to learn how to nurture healthy relationships with screens, and we believe our data shows that it's impossible to start too early."
[ad_2]
Source link