Introduction:
Due to the potential harm to children's cognitive, linguistic, and social-emotional development, children's excessive reliance on screen media has given rise to severe public health concerns. This paper discusses screen usage management and limiting strategies for children as well as the consequences of screen time on many developmental categories. The cognitive impacts of screen media are diverse and have been linked to both positive and negative outcomes. The use of screens in the classroom can enhance learning. However, excessive screen usage and multitasking with other media have been linked to worse academic achievement and executive functioning. Time spent in front of a screen can affect a child's language development as well as the quantity and quality of interactions with their carers.
Modern children today live in a world where new technology, such as mobile phones and interactive screen media, is commonplace. Today's kids are "digital natives," having grown up in a constantly evolving digital environment enhanced by mobile media. The average age at which children first interact with media has decreased from four years old in 1970 to four months old nowadays. Electronic gadgets have completely changed how people study, communicate, and share information. However, new research suggests that using screens for media purposes may have long-term, detrimental consequences on children's health, which makes this an urgent public health problem. It has increased the risk that kids may gain weight, have behavioral issues, have irregular sleep patterns, do poorly in school, etc.
How Does Screen Time Technology Affect the Development of Children?
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Cognitive Development: Using screens for media can affect a child's cognitive performance in both positive and negative ways. Screen-equipped media devices have the power to enhance learning and education. For example, studies have indicated that early reading skills and creative thinking abilities in young children may be enhanced by electronic books and learning-to-read software. On the other hand, research has also shown that using screen media negatively impacts a variety of cognitive domains, including academic performance, sensorimotor development, and executive functioning. Teenage media multitasking has been shown to negatively affect executive functioning, particularly working memory, inhibition, and task-switching ability.
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Language Development: Early infancy is a critical period for the development of language abilities, as children learn phonology and vocabulary, among other language-related skills. Adult interactions help us learn these talents. Many studies have shown how important human interaction is for language development, especially the quantity and quality of interactions between adults and children. There is an increasing worry, though, that screen time reduces the amount and quality of interactions that children have with their parents, which means that the kid has fewer opportunities to practice and advance their language skills. Several elements need to be considered in the complicated interaction between screen time and speech and language development.
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Social-Emotional Development: The idea of screen time has grown increasingly complicated in recent years due to the widespread availability of a large variety of electronic gadgets. The use of screens by young people has risen due to technological advancements in recent years, which has decreased their interaction with nature and negatively impacted their mental and general well-being. Studies have indicated adverse correlations between screen time, namely television use, and the advancement of cognitive and motor skills.
What Are the Strategies Used to Reduce and Manage Screen Time in Children?
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There is ample evidence that parents who raise awareness and take other simple steps may drastically reduce their children's screen usage.
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Early patterns of excessive screen usage appear to persist over time and are associated with other unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as inadequate sleep and poor nutrition.
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Teens' television and other screen time consumption only fell when the intervention contained certain components or activities meant to lower it.
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Interventions may also involve the TV Turn-off Challenge, which is a campaign to turn off the TV for a set number of days, the use of electronic monitoring devices to limit screen time (allowing users to set time limits for TV, DVD, computer, or video game use), the conditional use of screens on physical activity, or education through small or mass media (such as billboards, brochures, or newsletters).
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Maternity ward birth kits must include information on screen time for infants and young children.
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Health visitors must know about medical evidence and offer guidance to newlyweds.
What Is the Role of Parents in Managing Screen Time?
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Screen time was occasionally utilized as a reward by parents, but they also thought that technology would negatively affect their child's behavior, social skills, sleep patterns, and physical exercise.
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As primary carers, parents may usually establish rules and observe their children to establish behavioral control in the household.
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The truth is that boosting a child's desired behavior has been accomplished by therapies intended to improve everyday parenting practices at home.
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Consistent with this perspective, several studies show that children spend less time in front of screens (TV, video games, and computer/internet use) when parents apply technological limits (such as television, smartphones, tablets, and laptops).
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Parental controls, which are often found on many technological gadgets (such as televisions, computers, smartphones, etc.) as additional settings and password protection, might be a good way to address concerns parents have about their children's screen time.
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Screen time is considerably reduced when parents set screen time limits for their children and when devices are kept out of bedrooms, according to research from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other organizations. The best ranges for discretionary screen time are 0.5 to 1 hours per day for children ages three to seven, 1 hour for children ages 7 to 12, 1.5 hours for children ages 12 to 15, and 2 hours for children ages 16 and over. One further important component is role modeling. There is a strong correlation between the amount of screen time parents and children spend together. Children who grow up in households where viewing television is valued (e.g., meals eaten in front of the TV, the TV turned on when the child arrives home from school) are more likely to binge-watch themselves.
Conclusion:
Children's development might be positively or negatively impacted by excessive screen time. Screens can improve learning and education in terms of cognitive growth. Early screen time has been linked to worse academic achievement and cognitive decline in later life. By creating limits, controlling behavior, and increasing awareness, parents may effectively manage and reduce screen time. In general, it is critical that parents, teachers, and medical professionals recognize the possible dangers of excessive screen time and put strategies in place to support kids' healthy growth, such as substituting activities that improve social-emotional, cognitive, and language skills.
