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According to a major study, letting children spend more than two hours a day on their phones or watching television can damage their brains.
According to scientists, too much time spent playing computer games, accessing social media and watching programs leads to lower brain development.
Children spending the most time on electronic devices or watching television had a cognitive function about 5% less than other children aged 8 to 11 years.
Researchers believe that time spent in front of a screen does not stimulate the brain in the same way as reading books and can lead to poorer sleep, which is essential for the development of the child.
Dr. Jeremy Walsh, from the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa, who led the study, said it was important for children to get the right balance of activity.
One study found that letting children spend more than two hours a day on their phones could damage their brains. Stock Photo
"Daily behaviors and activities contribute to brain and cognitive development in children and physical activity, sedentary behaviors and sleep can affect cognition independently and collectively," he said.
"We found that more than two hours of screen time in children were associated with lower cognitive development."
The study of more than 4,500 children in the United States focused on the amount of time spent in front of the screen, sleep and physical activity.
Children and parents completed questionnaires to estimate physical activity, sleep, and time spent in front of the child's screen.
Only one in 20 children meets the daily guidelines of nine to eleven hours of sleep, one hour of physical activity and limited screen time.
Youth were then asked to complete a cognition test, which assessed language skills, thinking skills, attention levels, working memory, and processing speed.
Nearly one in three children – 29% – did not meet any of the guidelines and four in ten – 41% – met only one.
Children who used electronic devices or watched television most often had a cognitive function approximately 5% lower than the others between 8 and 11 years old.
A quarter of children (25%) met in pairs while only 5% respected the three recommendations of Canadian public health officials.
Only half of children responded to the sleep recommendation, while almost two-thirds (63%) spent more than two hours watching television or watching devices.
The study found that American children spent an average of 3.6 hours per day on the screen time.
Only 18% of them satisfied the recommendation of physical activity for one hour a day and nearly one fifth (18%) of the children were considered obese.
The more individual recommendations the child had, the better his cognitive tests were, the results being published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.
Only recommendations for screen time or recommendations for screen time and sleep were the strongest associations with cognitive development, researchers at the Children's Hospital Research Institute found. from eastern Ontario.
A limited screen time and improved sleep have been associated with the best links with improving cognition, while physical activity may be more important for physical health.
The study focused on household income, education of parents and children, ethnicity, pubertal development, body mass index and the eventual presence of children. traumatic brain injury in the child.
Commenting on the results, Dr. Eduardo Esteban Bustamante of the University of Illinois (USA) said: "Every minute spent on a screen necessarily shifts a minute of sleep or cognitively stimulating activities. In the case of the use of the evening screen, this displacement can also be aggravated by an alteration of the quality of sleep.
"The strong associations between overall cognition and adherence to Walsh and colleagues' recommendation about time spent in a recreational screen potentially reflect the interruption of the stress recovery cycle required for growth in children who do not respond. not to this recommendation.
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