Screen time is now a regular part of daily life for many young children, but researchers continue to study how early exposure may affect learning and development. A new longitudinal study following children from age 1 to age 8 found that higher screen use—particularly during infancy and the early school years—was linked to lower academic performance at age 9 and weaker working memory at age 10.5. The findings suggest that when children use screens may be just as important as how much time they spend on them.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend avoiding screen exposure until 18 to 24 months, except for video chatting, and limiting screen time to less than one hour per day for children ages 2 to 5. However, many children exceed these recommended limits. Research on the relationship between screen time and cognitive development has produced mixed results. Earlier studies often examined children at only one point in time, focused mainly on school-age children, or did not repeatedly measure screen exposure during early childhood. Long-term studies that follow children through multiple developmental stages may help identify when screen use has the greatest impact while accounting for family and environmental factors.
Tracking screen time from infancy to childhood
Researchers from Inserm and the National University of Singapore conducted the study, with the findings published in the World Pediatric Journal. The team analyzed data from the GUSTO birth cohort, using parent-reported information about children’s screen viewing at six different ages. The researchers then compared screen exposure with academic performance and working memory outcomes measured several years later.
The analysis included 502 children who were followed from infancy through middle childhood. Higher screen exposure at certain developmental stages was associated with lower academic performance and weaker working memory later on. The strongest patterns appeared among children exposed to more screen time during infancy and around the beginning of formal schooling, suggesting that these periods may be especially sensitive for cognitive development.
Children with consistently higher screen exposure across childhood also tended to perform less well academically. Together, the findings indicate that total screen time is only one part of the picture. The age at which children develop heavier screen-use habits may also influence learning, attention, and memory over time.
Screen time at age 1 showed the strongest association
“The effect size observed at 1 year of age was the largest of all time points examined,” the authors said. “This suggests that early infancy, when the developing brain is particularly vulnerable to the displacement of learning interactions by screen time, may be a period of heightened susceptibility. We were also surprised that although we did not find a significant association between screen use at ages 2 and 3, the association reappeared at age 6, when children enter formal schooling. So this is not just an issue in early childhood, and screen use from early childhood onwards is still important.”
The association did not appear consistently at every age. Screen viewing at ages 2 and 3 was not significantly linked to the later outcomes measured in the study, but the relationship reappeared at age 6. This period coincides with the transition to formal education, when children face greater demands on attention, working memory, and academic learning.
Why the timing of screen use matters
The researchers said the results support the general principle that less screen exposure may be better for young children. Although an additional hour of daily screen time may not affect every child in the same way, even small increases across a population could contribute to lower academic performance for a significant number of children.
These findings suggest that efforts to manage children’s screen time may be especially important during infancy, early childhood, and the years leading up to formal schooling. However, screen duration alone does not explain every developmental outcome. Future research should examine whether the effects of screen exposure vary according to content quality, device type, the context in which screens are used, and whether parents watch or interact with their children.
The GUSTO study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Singapore and the National Medical Research Council of Singapore’s Ministry of Health (NMRC/TCR/004-NUS/2008 and NMRC/TCR/012-NUHS/2014). Additional funding was provided by the French National Research Agency (ANR) through the iSCAN project (ANR-20-CE36-0001).
Source: www.sciencedaily.com