Culture Post: Two or More Hours of Daily Screen Time Tied to Lower Well-Being in Preschoolers

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Among U.S. preschoolers, two hours or more of daily screen time are associated with lower psychological well-being, according to a study published online in JAMA Network Open.

Soyang Kwon, Ph.D., from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues evaluated screen time in the prepandemic (2018 and 2019) and pandemic (2020 and 2021) periods to examine the relationship between screen time and psychological well-being among young U.S. children aged 6 months to 5 years.

The analysis included daily screen time reported by 48,775 participants’ primary caregivers participating in the 2018 to 2021 National Survey of Children’s Health.

Compared with one hour per day of screen time for children ages 3 to 5 years, the odds of flourishing differed by length of screen time (less than one hour: adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.66; two hours: aOR, 0.81; three hours: aOR, 0.68; at least four hours: aOR, 0.53). There was no association between screen time and flourishing among children aged 6 months to 2 years.

Compared with one hour per day of screen time among children ages 3 to 5 years, an adjusted externalizing behavior score was higher for all screen time frequencies.

“Two hours or more of daily screen time was associated with lower psychological well-being among preschool-aged children,” the authors write.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03-hours-daily-screen-preschoolers.html

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