Toddlers using touch-screen tablets for playlike activities are less likely than those who play with real toys to communicate or interact socially with their parents, a federally funded study has found.
The study, funded by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, is among the first to provide hard evidence that digital screen addiction starts in toddlerhood and is more likely to develop with certain types of social media apps, said pediatrician Dimitri A. Christakis, lead author and the editor-in-chief of JAMA Pediatrics.
“Young children need laps, not apps,” said Dr. Christakis, an investigator and professor at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, affiliated with Seattle Children’s Hospital and the public University of Washington.
He said the study also adds to a growing body of research linking early screen use to delayed development of language skills.
“Human back-and-forth interaction is essential for children’s cognitive and social development,” Dr. Christakis said.
From June 2021 to November 2022, seven researchers compared the behavioral responses of 63 children 18 to 32 months old as they viewed videos of toy play, played with a digital toy, played a digital game app and played with a real toy in a laboratory.
They found that toddlers playing the popular tablet game responded to fewer nonverbal cues for attention from parents. Boys took longer than girls to acknowledge adult behavioral requests. This lack of attention to face-to-face interaction increased with age and among those whose homes reported more social media use.
The researchers published their findings online Wednesday in JAMA Network Open.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children younger than 2 and no more than one hour per day of high-quality programming for children ages 2 to 5.
No limit has been prescribed for school-age children, but the Mayo Clinic recommends that parents limit social media use and gaming as needed.
Policymakers across the political spectrum have scrambled to address a growing youth mental health crisis linked to increased screen time. Multiple reports have tracked upticks in anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among young people since pandemic lockdowns shuttered K-12 schools in March 2020.
In an op-ed last month, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked Congress to add tobacco-style health warning labels to social media.
Despite the convenience of digital screens, Dr. Murthy pointed in a May 23 advisory to “ample indicators that social media can also pose a risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
Reflecting similar concerns, Florida enacted a law last year to limit student cellphone use in public schools. Indiana and Ohio did the same this year, and many individual school districts have banned phones entirely.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, issued an executive order Tuesday directing the commonwealth’s public school systems to restrict nonacademic cellphone use on school grounds by January. His order cited an “alarming mental health crisis.”
Pediatrician Tiffany Munzer, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the study published Wednesday shows “it can be harder” for toddlers using tablet devices to build essential back-and-forth communication skills. She urged parents not to use phones or tablets to calm unruly toddlers because the practice can stunt emotional growth.
“So much of communication for toddlers remains nonverbal and embedded in body language,” said Dr. Munzer, who was not involved in the study.
She disagreed about absolute prohibitions on touch screens for toddlers.
“There can be many positive ways to use a digital device with toddlers,” Dr. Munzer said. “High-quality, educational media have been shown to promote toddler development.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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