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Tag Archives: technology

Preventing the Phone-Based Childhood: Attention Preschool Parents

Preschool aged child using tablet. Photo by Merrily Pierce

Though it seems little kids everywhere are on hand-held screens, scientists are just catching up with effects that digital devices have on growing minds.

A new study adds to increasing concerns for preschool parents.

Turns out that mobile device use can interfere with how preschool-aged children learn to manage their emotions. The more time on screens, the more a child tends to struggle with anger and frustration.    

“What we seem to be observing is the emergence possibly of a vicious cycle over time.”

That’s the word from Caroline Fitzpatrick, Canada’s research chair on the impact of digital media on children. The work of her team at Quebec’s University of Sherbrooke is in JAMA Pediatrics.

The Canadian Tablet Study

Sherbrooke followed more than 200 preschoolers—checking in on each one at ages 3, 4 and 5.

The more time 3-year-olds spent on mobile devices, the more they were prone to anger and frustration one year later.  

4-year-old device users with anger management issues used screens more as they got older.

“We found that by the age of 5, children with worse emotion regulation skills were spending more time using tablets,” reports Fitzpatrick.

3-year-old device users were most vulnerable to emotional upheaval.   

How Digital Pacifiers Backfire  

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Congress and Angry Parents Make Progress Fighting Social Media Harms. You Can, too.

Teen girl lying in bed looking at her phone

Social media platforms may soon need to acquiesce to the demands of Congress and upset parents. 

The prospect comes after the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee called for testimony by Snap, X, TikTok, Discord, and Meta.

As their executives responded to angry questioning, parents stood silently behind them, holding up photographs of their children whose deaths are related to using the platforms.

“You have blood on your hands,” ranking member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) accused Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the hearing began. “You have a product that’s killing people.”  

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Household Stress Often Led to Problematic Media Use by Kids in Pandemic

boy stares at screen during screentime in pandemic

Stress in the household was a main reason why many children developed problematic media use during the height of the pandemic. Household screen rules had little effect on media usage, according to new research.  

Emily Kroshus had three children under age 6 at the time of the pandemic lockdowns. She remembers how she coped with online work meetings. “I would turn to screens.” And not to co-view and discuss content with her children. “It’s more like: ‘please, can I hypnotize you for an hour?’” 

“I’m not proud of that,” the child behavioral researcher recalls. “And I don’t think I’m alone.” 

Curiosity prompted Kroshus and her lab at Seattle Children’s Research Institute to survey other parents in the fall of 2020. A diverse group of 1,000 American families responded, each with at least one child between the age of 6 and 17.

According to the survey results published in the journal Pediatrics, one in three children displayed “problematic media use,” which Kroshus describes as “the child is unwilling or unable to stop using media.” 

About one in three households had rules around media use, such as keeping devices out of the bedroom at night and not bringing screens to meals. But did those rules prevent problematic use of phones, laptops and computers? Continue reading

A Mother Speaks about Her Toddler, Screentime, and Virtual Autism

Toddler plays alone on tablet

Robin thought she was “being Super Mom” as she made nice dinners and tidied her midwestern U.S. home, with her toddler son quietly sitting nearby watching made-for-babies TV. She didn’t know that by letting him watch so often, he was developing the newly described condition termed “Virtual Autism.”

Took a While to Realize

For weeks, Robin rationalized the changes she saw, but finally had to admit something was wrong. Her formerly happy, lively 14-month-old had stopped having eye contact, no longer said words, and began to display hand-flapping, spinning and other autistic-like symptoms.

“The big one was,” she recalls, “he had stopped answering to his name.” Continue reading

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