The ELFE Study (Étude Longitudinale Française depuis l’Enfance, the French Longitudinal Study of Children) is the first nationwide French longitudinal study devoted to following children, looking at the many aspects of their lives from the angle of the social sciences, health and the environment. For the first time, researchers from all backgrounds are following children’s lives from birth to adulthood. 18,000 children born in 2011 were initially included in this study.
The results on toddlers’ screen time have just been published and, unsurprisingly, match findings from other international studies. So what are the main results to remember ?
- Toddlers’ daily screen time exceeds recommendations, and television remains the most present medium in toddlers’ lives
Indeed, at the age of 2, children spend 56 minutes a day on screens, 86% of it television! Time on a smartphone possibly lent to the child by their parents was not counted. Let us nevertheless remember that in France it is recommended not to expose children under 3 to television. And yet only 13% of the families in the study followed this recommendation…
At the age of 3 and a half, toddlers are exposed to screens for 1 hour 20 minutes a day on average, 73% of it television. Only half of the families followed the recommendation “No more than one hour a day”.
Finally, at the age of 5 and a half, daily screen time averaged 1 hour 34 minutes, 64% of it television. The percentage of families following the recommendation “No more than one hour a day” fell to 39%.
These figures of course raise the question of how to make prevention campaigns reach further.
- Significant geographical disparities
Young children in Brittany are the least exposed to screens, while those in Hauts-de-France spend much more time in front of screens at the same age. Do social differences come into play, given that the Hauts-de-France region is particularly impoverished? Does the environment in Brittany encourage more alternative activities, such as outdoor activities? Are there regional cultural differences? These are all questions raised by these figures that deserve to be studied.
- Family migration history and a low maternal level of education are risk factors for overexposure to screens among toddlers
The more a family is marked by migration histories, the greater the risk of overexposure of the youngest to screens. Note that these are families in which a television left on can be a form of link with the country of origin, through watching channels in the mother tongue. It is also a presence for people who have been uprooted, sometimes prey to loneliness. We can also hypothesise that adults are less available because of complex administrative situations. Finally, these may be cultures and countries in which prevention campaigns on the effects of screens on children are rare or absent, as is the case in African countries, for example.
A low maternal level of education has been identified in many international studies as an important risk factor for overexposure to screens among toddlers.
These data show us the population groups towards which our prevention efforts must be directed.
- Persistence of behaviours
A child who watches screens a lot when small continues to watch them a lot as they grow up. Here again, a large number of studies underline this important risk factor. Good habits must therefore be formed as early as possible !
- No gendered use of screens in early childhood
Girls and boys use screens in the same way at this stage of life. It is later that differences between the genders appear in digital uses.
The authors of the study themselves point out factors that may limit the scope of their findings :
- These are children born in 2011, so before the COVID period, and before the explosion in the place of mobile digital tools in our lives (smartphones, tablets). However, other more recent foreign studies continue to show that television remains the most present screen among the youngest. Conversely, over the last ten years prevention campaigns have developed considerably, allowing young parents, we hope, to be better informed about the risks and recommendations than parents in 2011 were.
- It is a self-reported study, meaning the data do not come from the researchers’ direct observation but from questionnaires given to parents. They are therefore subject to two types of bias : memory biases, which can lead to errors in the reported data, and social desirability biases, which can lead to screen time being understated because parents know it is valued to be able to set limits on screens.
However, thanks to the large number of children followed over time, the ELFE cohort is the first study of such robustness in France. The results observed are valuable for adjusting prevention campaigns and actions on the effects of screens, by directing messages in particular at the populations and uses most at risk.
To find out more :
Everything about the ELFE study : https://www.elfe-france.fr/fr/
The article on the recent results on toddlers’ screen time : http://beh.santepubliquefrance.fr/beh/2023/6/2023_6_1.html
