A new study was conducted at the University of Florida Atlantic, along with the University of Aarhus in Denmark. According to this research, the researchers found that unsupervised screen time that kids have on mobile devices and tablets is a major hindrance to their language development. Not only does this early childhood screen time affect just language difficulties, but it also affects a child’s emotional development.
Isolated Screen Time: Catalyst for Childhood Language Delays
A study published under the research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology laid expected and very unsurprising results, in front of people all around the world. The research found that poor communication skills among the little kids aged from 4 to 5 years and their problems of low vocabulary were consistently high among those preschoolers, who were spending 20 to 30 min of screen time, without any adult or guardian taking care of them nearby per day.
Read More: Language Development and Brain Networks: A Cognitive and Psychological Analysis
Research Details
For the conduct of this research, the scientists deeply observed the behaviour of kindergarten kids. They monitored the activities of 546 total participants. Among these little kids who were aged 5 years old, 264 participants were girls, and the number of boy participants was 282. All these children were attending 24 Childcare Centres, which worked on a population basis, and came under the area of 13 different municipalities in Denmark.
During all the research, the kids were monitored at school by their teachers and while at home by their parents. In a period of 6 months, which is a single school year, the teachers conducted standardised tests of all the children, which included communication skills and their language abilities. On the other hand, parents reported the solo screen time their child spent in a day at home with the devices. This time was properly defined as the number of hours per week. These hours did not include the time during which kids were using devices under the supervision of the adults & guardians.
Read More: Is Screen Time Stealing Our Children’s Words?
Major Findings
In all these 6 months, the research conducted revealed that oral language problems and social-emotional difficulties were consistently found in the kids who used entertainment devices without the supervision and care of their guardians. Low productivity with poor language and communication skills was seen to have taken a rise among those kids, whose guardians reported that they spend more time on screen, even above the average number of hours in a day.
As per the directions provided to the people by the World Health Organisation, children should not spend more than an hour per day at max on smartphones and other digital devices. However, a global review found that among 2/3 households, this limit is exceeded daily. This research found that both things matter the content and the supervision matter. The researchers noticed that high-quality content has provided benefits to children, especially as they grow.
Read More: The Psychology Behind Preschool Screen Time: Balancing Learning and Overstimulation
Author’s Perspective
When kids get engaged in mobile devices and they are not under the continuous observation of their parents, it closes and hinders the time for their social engagement which might and is very likely to increase the behavior problems, social emotional distancing as well as language problems, said Brett Laursen who is a Ph.D. senior author along with being a professor of psychology in FAU’s Charles E Schmidt College of Science.
Laursen further uses an economics model to explain the research results in great detail. He states that economists define opportunity costs as losses attached to choices. Children have a huge amount of free hours in a day, which means every hour that a child spends locked in alone with a device is the time during which they are not working on their language skills and social interactions with other people. It’s an hour wasted that they should have spent on practising. Electronic media and social media applications can in no way replace the rich social experience a child can gain from playing with his friends and family.
A lead author of the study, along with being an FAU doctoral student in psychology, Molly said: “The exact point of time when kids engage themselves with devices is a risk for their healthy development.” There are extremely low chances to expect from a child alone with a smartphone to use it productively and improve their language or communication skills, and on the other hand, many reasons to suspect that the social media devices will do nothing but make the matter even worse.
Read More: Importance of Social Interaction in Early Childhood Development
Conclusion
Although this research did not work on a sensational topic, it simply talks about how the activities we conduct in a normal day are constantly causing a silent harm to our lives. The research found that the solo screen time that kids spend with any digital device is harmful to their social-emotional development. It works as a hindrance in the development of their language and vocabulary skills, as well as their social bonding.
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