Too much screen time 'can damage children as badly as poverty'

Ankur Desai (0:00)

This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hi, I'm Ankur Desai, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 29th of September, these are our main stories. A large scale study of screen use by children finds that prolonged exposure can damage their well-being as much as poverty, premature birth or bad parenting. Ukraine's National Academy of Science in the heart of Kiev is hit by a drone strike, as Russia increasingly focuses attacks on the city. And the US prosecutors reopen the case of an alleged gang rape at Cornell, one of the country's most prestigious universities.

Also in this podcast, why communities around the world are pushing back against AI data centers being built in the local area. And we have the new Queen of Chess.

Bodana Sivanandan (0:50)

I'm happy to do it, but I want to keep going and keep making history as well, instead of just stop here.

Ankur Desai (0:58)

Meet the youngest ever woman Grandmaster.

Kids age 6 to 18 who spend too much time on social media, gaming or streaming are in danger of suffering the same kind of damage to their well-being that's caused by poverty, bad parenting or being born prematurely. The results of a new study also link excessive screen time to poor academic achievement and language development, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and even heart problems. Researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada analyze the use of smartphones, televisions and social media by millions of children all over the world. And what's being hailed is one of the biggest ever studies of its kind. Critics say the findings are not insignificant, but insist that screen time is not the only reason teenagers become emotionally distressed or fail to reach their academic goals. Dr. Sherry Madigan is the senior author of The Review.

Sherry Madigan (1:57)

This was what we call an umbrella review, which is essentially a review of all the reviews that have been done in the world. It gives us a real bird's-eye view of the evidence so far. That's really accumulated on children's screen times and the children's developmental outcomes. Instead of asking what one study found, we're really able to step back and ask what the evidence tells us as a whole. And what we found is that overall, greater screen use was associated with poor outcomes across several domains of children's development. In particular, we saw associations with language and academic outcomes, as well as mental health outcomes and peer difficulties. But we actually didn't see significant associations with every outcome we examined, which I think is a really important part of the story too.

Ankur Desai (2:42)

And we need to also draw down on the ages, right? Does excessive screen time have an impact on children of all ages, differing ages, and is there an acceptable amount of screen time per age group, maybe?

Sherry Madigan (2:52)

We actually found that screen time across all ages was associated to some degree with these developmental outcomes. But we found even stronger associations among older children.

We can't say from this study exactly why that might be the case, but we can sort of speculate that as children are older, they're actually on devices for longer periods of time. And they also start to operate more independently on devices. And they start to explore different device types. So they get into platforms like social media, they start to do more gaming. And when you go on those types of platforms, the digital media becomes more interactive and the content actually becomes more personalized. So I think that what we can say is that as they get older, they get more independent and they get more curious, and they actually just spend more time on devices. And we might see a stronger effect in the older kids as a result.

Ankur Desai (3:44)

I'm sure some critics have downplayed the results, saying that the only reason teenagers become emotionally distressed or fail to reach their academic goals can't only be pinned down to screen time.

Sherry Madigan (3:53)

Yeah, I think this is a really fair point, and we don't want to overstate the findings. But I think it's also equally important not to dismiss them. So what this study is saying is that screen time plays a role in children's development. But in reality, children's development is also shaped by many influences. And I think we have to keep that in mind. One of the important things to consider here is that screen time is nearly universal. So every child, everyone probably knows, listening in, has one of these devices. And so when there is such a large number of the population who are using these devices, I think we really have to think critically about how we support them in really developing healthy digital habits.