Children and screens: still many grey areas
Over the past few decades, electronic devices with a screen (television, video games, computers, smartphones, tablets) have become more and more widespread and accessible. The technological and digital revolutions have been so rapid and extensive that the potential health and social consequences of increased screen use have not been assessed in detail.
One consequence has been contradictory scientific positions and public health recommendations, which underline the lack of robust evidence on the influence of screens on health and development. A detailed analysis of the literature highlights major methodological limitations, such as the small number of recent longitudinal studies examining the most recent digital devices and content. In general, many grey areas remain, notably around the sociocultural context, the role of parent-child interactions and the consequences for children of the most recent interactive devices and digital content. Finally, it is essential to distinguish short-term changes (which are generally the only ones studied) from long-term changes, and also to distinguish changes in mental representations from changes in behaviour, the two not necessarily being correlated, as well as collaborative from non-collaborative screen activities.
These are some of the aims of the Elfe study: 18,000 children born in France in 2011 will be followed for 20 years. It has already produced some interesting results. At the age of 2, in 2013, two-thirds of children watched television every day, while 10% were exposed to smartphones daily and 20% occasionally. The proportion is probably higher today. But studying the impact of mobile screens (smartphones and digital tablets) is complex, because the more a child watches television, the more they also use mobile screens, so the durations add up. This is one of the questions this study could answer, but there are many others.
For example, in the available studies on the use of mobile devices, that is, tablets and smartphones, the mode of use (interactive or non-interactive) is rarely taken into account, only the overall time of use being counted; the content of the programmes watched is not taken into account either; and finally, accompanied and unaccompanied use are rarely differentiated (Clément, 2020). In short, more studies are needed to understand these specific impacts.
Likewise, when it comes to the use of television alone, things are far from clear. The theory that has prevailed for some years is that of displacement: the more time children spend in front of the television, the less they would have for creative play, interactive activities involving all five senses and their motor skills, and other fundamental social cognitive experiences. Attention and concentration abilities would be impaired (Schmidt et al., 2008). According to the results of a longitudinal study conducted by Linda Pagani’s team, there would also be a loss of “agency” in children who watched more than two hours of television a day between the ages of one and two: they would see themselves as spectators rather than as actors in the world capable of influencing situations. This would notably result in an additional risk of later becoming a victim or scapegoat for their peers (Pagani et al., 2010). If a child is less inclined to respond to aggression, it is then more likely to get worse. The relationship to facial expressions and emotional empathy would also be impaired (Pagani et al., 2016), and this could result in isolation behaviours, when the child suffers from not understanding their peers’ expressions, or in proactive aggression, if they mistake, for example, an expression of anxiety for an aggressive one. In general, these children would be less autonomous, less persevering and less socially skilled overall (Pagani et al., 2016).
However, these results concern correlations and do not demonstrate certain causality. Moreover, the displacement approach (screens would be harmful because they prevent other things from being done) is increasingly debated: some children have screen time and shared activities, others the same screen time but no other activity. It seems that parental disinterest and a lack of varied stimulation are just as much the problem as screens.
On the other hand, it is established that there are significant social disparities. It is in the most socio-economically disadvantaged environments that young children are most exposed to screens (Gassama et al., 2018). And moreover, early television consumption increases later use of other digital media (Poulain et al., 2018), which shows the importance of limiting screen consumption in early childhood as a preventive goal.
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References
– Clément, M.-N. (2020). Les 0-6 ans et les écrans digitaux nomades, Evaluation de l’exposition et de ses effets à travers la littérature internationale, Neuropsychiatrie de l’Enfance et de l’Adolescence, 68(4), 190-195.
– Gassama, M., Bernard, J., Dargent-Molina, P. & Charles, M.-A. (2018). Activités physiques et usage des écrans à l’âge de 2 ans chez les enfants de la cohorte Elfe. Analyse statistique et rapport préparés à la demande de la Direction Générale de la Santé.
– Pagani, L.-S., Fitzpatrick, C., Tracie, A.-B. & Dubow, E. (2010). Prospective associations between early childhood television exposure and academic, psychosocial, and physical well-being by middle childhood. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med., 164(5), 425-431.- Pagani, L.-S., Lévesque-Seck, F. & Fitzpatrick, C. (2016). Prospective associations between televiewing at toddlerhood and later self-reported social impairment at middle school in a Canadian longitudinal cohort born in 1997/1998. Psychological Medicine, 46(16), 3329-3337.
– Poulain, T., Vogel, M., Neef, M., Abicht, F., Hilbert, A., Genuneit, J., Körner, A. & Kiess, W. (2018). Reciprocal Associations between Electronic Media Use and Behavioral Difficulties in Preschoolers. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 15(4), 814-826.
– Schmidt M.-E., Pempek T.-A., Kirkorian, L., Lund, A.-F. & Anderson, D.-R. (2008). The effects of background television on the toy play behavior of very young children. In Journal Child Dev, Georgetown University, 79(4), 1137-1151.
Serge Tisseron is a psychiatrist, doctor of psychology qualified to supervise research, member of the Academy of Technologies, and associate researcher at the University of Paris (CRPMS).
