Parents have been warned distracting children with devices and having more screen time can lead to them learning fewer words, according to new research.
More than 200 Australian families were tracked for two-and-a-half years with toddlers fitted with a device to record 16 hours a day of audio in the family home.
When the team from the Telethon Kids Institute waded through the 7,000 hours of audio they found toddlers in the study were averaging three hours of screen time a day, and that lost learning quickly added up.
"For the three-year-olds in our study, we showed that for one minute of screen time they were hearing seven fewer adult words, they were speaking five fewer words themselves and they were engaging in one less conversation each day," senior research officer Mary Brushe said.
According to findings published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, screen time could be robbing the average three-year-old of 1,100 adult words, 840 vocalisations and 194 conversations a day.
"What we know from previous research is that the more words and conversations that children can have the better when it comes to their early language development — and so we want to see those numbers as high as possible," Dr Brushe said.
The average child hears between 5,000 and 35,000 words a day, meaning the significance of those lost words can vary. The researchers stopped short of linking the learning loss to the speech delay impacting a quarter of Australian students starting primary school.
Researchers are warning parents to beware of "technoference" — a term for screens and devices getting in the way of the conversations that help children develop a range of key educational skills.
"If anything, we have probably underestimated how much screen usage – and associated 'technoference' – is going on around children because we haven't been able to capture parents' silent screen-related activities, such as reading emails, texting, or quietly scrolling through websites or social media," Dr Brushe said.
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Parents say it's a shock
Perth dad Callum Walley is concerned about how much screen time his 18-month-old daughter Elizabeth gets each day but like most busy working parents, some is a necessity.
"It's a simple solution for us when things are getting a little bit hectic," he said.
"When I'm getting back from work and Livy [Elizabeth] is running amok and you just need 20 minutes to get some stuff done, it's just an easy thing to put on for a little bit and it does settle her."
The new dad said he wished parents had more advice and guidance on how much screen time was too much.
The good news for parents like Callum is that researchers say carefully selecting what is on the screen so that it's educational, and being there to answer questions, can lessen the downsides of screen time.
Researchers said another important tip was to turn off the television when it was just background noise and try music or a podcast instead.
"This [having the TV on] can be very distracting for very young children, so they really struggle to pay attention to two different things at the same time," Dr Brushe said.
"So even though you think your child might be playing or reading while the TV's on in the background, they're actually not getting the full benefit of either of those activities."
Hearing fewer words may not lead to long-term literacy problems
Michael Noetel, a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland who helped review studies on screen time, said Dr Brushe's paper was a strong study that objectively measured screen time.
However, he said there were some weaknesses and it was not clear whether hearing fewer words necessarily translated into literacy problems down the track.
"We can't say for sure that hearing fewer words is bad for a kid's long-term literacy and development," Dr Noetel said.
"The assumption here is that by hearing fewer words kids are going to develop less quickly and there's some evidence to suggest that matters — but if you're meeting WHO guidelines, then kids in this study were hearing 4 per cent fewer words than they were otherwise.
"We're not really sure that would translate into a meaningful drop in literacy over time."
The World Health Organization recommends limiting screen time to one hour per day for three-year-olds. In Australia, guidelines advise no screen time for children under two, then limiting it to one hour per day until they are five years old.
Dr Noetel said screen time was best approached the same way as food, with parents putting limits on the "bad" screen time in favour of more educational screen time.
"Some screens are doing different things than others," he said.
"Passively watching TV does not seem like it's great for kids' development or their health but other things seem to be having different effects.
"Things like educational apps do help kids learning."
He said the study reinforced the need to talk to children at all points during the day, especially during the early years.
"When kids are active and up and attending to the world, the more that we talk to them, the faster they learn and the better they handle all the hard things in life."
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'Put the phone down when you can'
Dr Brushe and the team may develop responses to those unanswered questions with further research.
They plan on returning to the children in the study as they get older to track the impact of screen time as young people move through their schooling.
"We do really want to make sure that this isn't just another thing to add to the guilt that parents feel about their everyday life," she said.
"We want to just highlight that this is something going on for a lot of Australian families and to encourage conversation and put the phone down when you can and talk more to your child."
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