For little ones, nothing can match their parents’ human touch. So says an unprecedented 37-nation alliance of clinicians, researchers, educators, and advocates.
The group cites a cascade of new research supporting an age-old notion: parents and caregivers provide the back-and-forth responsive attention and play that children need in their first years of life—and screen time can’t compare.
Babyhood: A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
Babyhood is the only time in life the human brain is growing so quickly.
“The first years of life are a critical time for brain development, when the baby’s back and forth social experiences with loved ones build the brain connections for processing language and social information,” says Karen Heffler, M.D., a developmental researcher from Drexel University School of Medicine in the U.S.
“Screen time disrupts and displaces these essential experiences,” she underscores.
Heffler is also part of the Global Alliance for Inspiring Non-tech Infant Nurturing and Growth, or GAINING.
To inform governments, healthcare providers and parents worldwide about new research on the developmental needs of children from birth to age 3, GAINING is distributing “awareness alerts” worldwide.
A “News to Know” alert for parents explains “how the brain develops in the first years sets the foundation for your child’s overall health and well-being” and that screen time can interfere.
Parents Stretched Thin
Though parents have the best of intentions, giving their all can be tough when attention-grabbing screens are everywhere and stress is a daily reality.
“To support parents and acknowledge how difficult life can be, we strived to be understanding in what we wrote,” María de los Angeles Paúl, pediatrician from Chile and GAINING member told the journal Perspectives in Infant Mental Health.
Tech has Unfair Advantage
GAINING also cites research that labeling the apps and shows made for the youngest children “educational” is misleading.
Though the visuals and sounds emitted from screens mesmerize babies, they aren’t neurologically ready to meaningfully learn from screens.
Studies continue to show what’s been well known: babies learn very well from people in person.
And, while it should be up to parents to decide how much screen time their children have, screen management is tough because media content often contains manipulative features.
“Programs for little ones may use design techniques that make it difficult for babies and young children to stop viewing,” the parent alert reveals.
Language Delays, Sleep Issues, and Autistic-like Symptoms
GAINING also cites research published in the past 6 years associating excessive screen use with serious developmental concerns for babies and toddlers.
Those include speech delays, problems with parent-child attachment, differences in brain formation, and behavior changes.
GAINING’s action comes as the U.S. government is searching for possible environmental risk factors for autism.
Federal health data show the autism rate is now 1 in 31 children in the U.S. That’s up from 1 in 5,000 children in 1975 when video cassette recorders (VCRs) began widespread use.
The alliance points to evidence that screen time may be a factor in the autism surge.
Getting Straight about Screen Time Guidelines
A soon-to-be-published survey of parents in Canada and the U.S. by child advocacy group Fairplay for Kids shows that 6 out of 10 babies under age 1 exceed screen time recommendations. That number rises to 9 out of 10 toddlers who are between 18 months and 2 years old.
But research also shows that parents who learn the recommendations allow significantly less screen time than parents who don’t know specifics.
As GAINING guidelines point out, babies in their first two years of life need full time to learn from parents and other people and have plenty of movement and play. Brief caregiver-attended video chats with loved ones are also OK.
Children between ages 2 and 5 also need days filled with play and conversation for their mental and physical health and skills development. Any screen viewing of only non-violent, high-quality content should total less than an hour over a day’s time.
How screen time can be harmful
Harm-inducing early life screen exposure takes three basic forms:
Technoference
Technoference refers to when the attention of a caregiver who is with a child is usurped or interrupted by a digital device. This may cause an infant to feel stress and interfere with a caregiver’s response to a child of any age.
A new meta-analysis in JAMA Pediatrics shows that technoference in the presence of children ages 0 to 5 is “significantly associated with poorer cognition and prosocial behavior, lower attachment, higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problems, and higher levels of screen time.”
Screens used to calm and entertain
When TVs, phones and tablets are used to calm or entertain a young child, it can lead to compulsive viewing. New research also shows that toddlers who use tablets struggle with anger and frustration.
“What we seem to be observing is the emergence possibly of a vicious cycle over time,” reports Caroline Fitzpatrick of Quebec’s University of Sherbrooke and Canada’s research chair on the impact of digital media on children.
“Using screens has been shown to worsen the problem, actually not make it better over time. It’s a short fix that they pay for later,” Heffler explained on the Dr. Doan YouTube channel. “They have worse behavioral problems as time goes on and it’s harder for them to learn to self-soothe.”
TV watching and as background noise
Time spent viewing screens deprives babies and toddlers of the time they need to interact with people and explore their real-world environment.
Even if it looks like they aren’t watching, a TV that is on in the presence of infants, babies, or toddlers distracts them from their play and lessens their interaction with people around them.
When children don’t hear enough words and back-and-forth conversation, it is harder for them to learn how to speak and can lead to speech delays.
GAINING urges parents to prioritize face-to-face time and wait until after little ones are asleep to spend any significant time watching TV and using devices.
Parents Need Societal Support
To support parents trying to follow healthy child development guidelines, GAINING urges government agencies to promote play-focused and screen-free nurseries, childcare centers and preschools.
Families also need safe and secure public spaces, including playgrounds, parks, sidewalks, as well as lending libraries of non-electronic toys and playthings.
The government alert also suggests placing advisories on digital content and device packages warning against use by very young children.
What Healthcare Providers can do
Health care providers routinely talk to parents about how good nutrition builds a child’s healthy body. Similarly, they can also explain that parents’ responsive attention, along with movement and tech-free play, build a child’s healthy brain.
As a way to support children’s overall health, providers could also discuss family tech management at prenatal visits and well-child exams.
Life Made Simpler
According to 2024 data from Common Sense Media, by the time children in the U.S. turn age 2, 4 in every 10 children have a tablet. By age 4, every other child has their own.
Meanwhile, the former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy acknowledged in a special advisory that parents experience more daily stress than other adults.
GAINING holds that parents’ lives can be simpler if screen time is not a factor.
Money can be saved by not buying expensive, breakable devices. Also, daily tugs of war over screen use won’t exist.
“It’s always easier to prevent than to intervene. So, if the child is not asking for a tablet, there’s no necessity for the child to have a tablet,” says Canada’s director of media research, Caroline Fitzpatrick.
Get GAINING Information
GAINING kicked off its awareness campaign on World Infant, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Day, April 23, 2025.
Find all the alerts, supporting research, and caregiver resources—including the “I Gain!” free, downloadable informational card for parents of babies from birth to 18 months—on the GAINING website, MyBabyGains.org.
About the author:
Jenifer Joy Madden is the founder of DurableHuman.com and a certified digital wellness educator. She is a co-founder of GAINING, the Global Alliance for Inspiring Non-tech Infant Nurturing and Growth.
