Being a parent, you might be concerned about how much time today’s kids spend on the screen be it phone, tablet, laptop, or TV. You might be aware of how screen time affects one’s health and whether there’s anything you can do to mitigate any negative effects.
According to Japanese research, if a 2-4 year old has more screen time that can affect his/her communication as well as daily living skills. However, studies have revealed, that when children play outside, the negative effects of screen time can be mitigated.
In the study, the researchers followed 885 children from 18 months to 4 years of age. They looked upon the relationship based on three key features- the average amount of time spent by a 2-year-old kid per day, the amount of outdoor play by a 2yr 8 month, and neurodevelopmental outcomes.
“Although both communication and daily living skills were worse in 4-year-old children who had had more screen time at age 2, outdoor play time had very different effects on these two neurodevelopmental outcomes,” said Kenji J. Tsuchiya, Professor at Osaka University and lead author of the study, adding, “We were surprised to find that outdoor play didn’t really alter the negative effects of screen time on communication–but it did have an effect on daily living skills.”
To be precise, only one-fifth of the effects of screen time on daily living skills were mediated by outdoor play. The researchers also found out that, 4-year-old kids had better socialization, who spent time playing outside.
“Taken together, our findings indicate that optimizing screen time in young children is really important for appropriate neurodevelopment,” said Tomoko Nishimura, senior author of the study, adding, “We also found that screen time is not related to social outcomes and that even if screen time is relatively high, encouraging more outdoor play time might help to keep kids healthy and developing appropriately.”
(ANI)
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