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Study Finds Children Log Excessive Screen-Time

ALBANY, N.Y. (Nov 26, 2019) – A study conducted by the University at Albany, the National Institutes of Health and New York University Langone Medical Center uncovered several new findings about the amount of time children spend watching television or using a computer or mobile device.

Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the study found that the average time children spend in front of screens increased from 53 minutes per day at 12 months to more than 150 minutes at 3 years – time periods that greatly exceed recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that digital media exposure should be avoided for children under 18 months of age, introduced slowly to children 18 to 24 months of age and limited to an hour a day for children from 2 to 5 years of age.

Additional findings include:   

The team, including Erin Bell, professor of Environmental Health Sciences at UAlbany’s School of Public Health, analyzed data from the Upstate KIDS study. Upstate KIDS, an ongoing cohort-based study co-led by Bell, tracks the ongoing growth, motor and social development of more than 6,000 babies born to 5,000 mothers between 2008 and 2010 in 57 counties of upstate New York excluding New York City.

For this particular study, mothers of nearly 4,000 Upstate Kids participants responded to questions on their children’s media habits when they were 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months of age, and then to similar questions when the children were 7 and 8 years old. The study compiled additional demographic information on the mothers and children from birth records and other surveys.

“This collaborative study led by our colleagues at Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has made it clear that screen habits are developing earlier than recommended,” said Bell. “Given the concern that increased screen-time may impact child development, our results suggest an important need to develop strategies for reducing children’s screen time at very young ages to better meet the current AAP screen-time recommendations.”

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