Most children are frequent users of mobile devices by age 2, and many are scrolling and clicking before they can walk or talk, a new study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting suggests.
The survey involved mobile device use by children as self-reported by mothers who attended a pediatric clinic that serves low-income, minority community, the authors said. Parents reported that by age 1, 36% of kids had touched or scrolled a screen, 24% had called someone, 15% used apps and 12% played video games. Many parents use devices to keep children entertained and babies can learn watching educational videos that spark their development, meaning it’s not always a bad thing if a child is using a device. By age two, a majority of the kids had done at least one of those things.
“We didn’t expect children were using the devices from the age of 6 months,” study author Hilda Kabali, M.D. told the American Academy of Pediatrics magazine. “Some children were on the screen for as long as 30 minutes.”
Parents let children play with mobile media while running errands (60%), doing chores around the house (73%), to calm the child (65%), and to put the child to sleep (29%),” the study abstract says. About one-quarter of children were using mobile devices for more than an hour per day by age 2 (and 14 percent by age 1).
Significantly, only 30 percent of parents reported discussing media use with their child’s pediatrician. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that television and other entertainment media “be avoided” for children under 2, and that has generally been interpreted to mean that babies and young toddlers shouldn’t be screen users. There is new diversity of opinion on that, however. Dimitri A. Christakis, a renowned Seattle pediatrician, said last year that limited play with interactive games — rather than passive watching — might be ok for very young children. Still, the temptation to use phone as babysitter is enormous, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks it’s a good idea for a 12-month-old baby to play with a smartphone for an hour per day.
You can view an abstract of the study here.
For a nuanced look at parents, young kids, and screen use, see this Zero to Three report.”Screen Sense.”
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