Advantages And Disadvantages Of Screen Time For Toddlers

Screen use amongst kids has boomed during the last decade – not just away from school, but even as an educational tool. Between video games, social media, homework and YouTube videos, numerous kids hit 6 or 7 hours of screen time every day.

Existing In A Virtual World

Once restricted to PCs and TVs, personal electronic gadgets now comprise Smartphone, tablets and laptop computers, whole of which are convenient to transport and access. Whereas this technology broadens the academic experience (and allows students to master material in new methods) it also carries some serious caveats: Studies connect screen time with anxiety, depression and disturbed sleep, among other issues.

The finest way to secure your children: Forge a balance between actual-life human interaction and screen time. These are the pros and cons of restricting screen time.

Advantages Of Screen Time

Apart from acting as a means for information, digital technology and screens present the following advantages:

Certain Types Of Digital Tools Can Promote Family Interactions

Employing video chat (Facetime, Skype, etc.) enables family members to join with each other when in-person communications are not likely. The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) accepts that children below 18 months can utilize such video platforms by the side of their parents to join with family members.

It’s Vital To Support Healthy Growth Of Children Through Co-playing And Co-viewing

Children of the age of 18 months can gain knowledge from digital media when co-playing or co-viewing with an involved adult (though extra research is required to back this recommendation). It is vital that parents reply and inquire about the matter they are co-viewing, highlight important concepts, and combine the content they are seeing with their daily routines and lives. By doing these activities, parents can build a structure to promote children’s instruction from digital content. Through interactions and dialogue, parents can promote their child’s linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional growth as their second birthday approaches.

Parents Can Select Top-quality Digital Content For Viewing Of Their Child

Encouraging active involvement with top-quality material is vital for kids from birth to 5 years, though it is also essential to regard the needs and interests of separate children. Websites such as PBS Kids, Common Sense Media, and Sesame Workshop can aid parents determine the programs and apps that are ideal for their children.

Digital Tools Can Foster School Preparedness Similar To Physical Tools

Family backing for school preparedness is seen in conventional forms such as book reading and latest technologies like e-books. Whether the story is in digital or print format, parents can assist children cultivate the expertise they require for school by interacting in conversational reading with their kids – making queries to them concerning the stories and linking the content to the life of the child.

Research indicates that preschoolers can study best from well-crafted e-books with restricted disturbing features (like sounds and games), and when questions of parents target the stories themselves instead of the characteristics of the electronic medium (like pushing buttons).

Digital Tools Can Foster Child And Parent Intimacy

Technology can draw interesting topics for discussion and motivate family members to interact more with one another. By family time and conversation, parents can engross in crucial responsive interactions that are vital for the healthy development of their child.

Kids Will Learn About Valuable Things In Life

As the Internet and social media have emerged as such a major part of our each day, we certainly have to think about what’s truly essential in life. It’s convenient to imagine that you can only be entertained by watching a screen.

Disadvantages Of Screen Time

Screens form a part of everybody’s life presently. While evidence is growing about the adverse effects of screen time on children and adults, your family can better their health by reducing their amount of screen time. The following are the disadvantages of prolonged screen time.

Physical Strain On Your Body And Eyes

Sitting for long hours gazing at a screen certainly comes at a cost for your body, particularly your eyes. Too much screen time not just stresses your eyes and dry them up, but can even cause damage to retina and blurring of vision. Moreover, being continuously slouched (as many kids and people are inclined to do with smart phones) also impacts your posture and may lead to pain and stiffness of both shoulder and neck.

Deprivation Of Sleep

The quantity of screen time spent by you has a direct effect on the amount of sleep obtained by you, in view of the fact that the blue light radiated from digital screens impedes the generation of melatonin, the sleep hormone of your body. Therefore, utilizing digital devices immediately before bedtime renders it much more difficult for you to go to sleep.

Greater Danger Of Obesity

The usage of any gadget having an electronic screen makes you sit for long hours, or remain stationary at least, while utilizing it. The sedentary activity, together with junk food ads, frequently causes childhood obesity.

Children abound with natural energy and need to jump, run and remain active otherwise. When such natural desire to stay active is cut down and they rest on their haunches for long hours, they will get overweight.

Obesity may aggravate health problems, like joint problems, diabetes and heart ailment. Childhood obesity leads to an epidemic in several countries, for which excessive screen time is responsible.

Absence Of Cognitive Ability

Amongst the scariest outcomes of too much screen time is its impact on your mental health. Excess screen time changes your very brain structure by shrinking the grey matter that regulates the cognitive processes, apart from deformity in the white matter that acts as the network of the signal communication of the brain. The consequence is impaired concentration, sluggish information processing, weaker memory and feeble impulse control – these impacts are more bothersome with regard to children, with brains that are yet developing.

Impaired Skills For Socialising

Utilizing digital gadgets is a primarily lonely activity – there isn’t much real-life interaction while we are engrossed with the activities on screen. This could cause elevated anti-social traits and withdrawal feelings. Particularly children lose this valuable opportunity to build essential social skills by playing with their companions when they occupy time rather on digital devices.

Diminished Emotional Judgment

Excessive screen time also influences your capacity to record and process emotions. Getting used to violent content is an especially bothersome side effect of lessened emotional judgment. As per scientific study, vulnerability to violent content on media can also elevate aggression levels, particularly in adolescents and younger children.

Slowed Learning For Young Children

With regard to young children, the alterations in their brain’s structure as a result of too much screen time can impact their learning capacities. Particularly, children who view TV more have greater difficulty comprehending languages – this lag in learning can be nearly 50% more for each 30 minutes assigned on viewing Television. Permitting kids to view educational programs might not be the ideal ways to teach them either – kids learn better through physical exploration, and making them view shows passively obstructs their brains from staying engaged and active.

Reduced Self-esteem

Lastly, wasting excess time in the virtual realm of screens can also negatively impact your perception of yourself. The time lost by you that could have been utilized on cultivating relationships with different people, recognizing and sharpening your passions, and building new experiences results in low confidence and self-identity. When the majority of your time is occupied on social media websites, this problem gets exacerbated as you may start bothering more concerning your artificial self-image rather than your actual one. For kids and youth, the risks of self-image problems and cyber bullying are especially bothersome.

Maybe among the most bothering outcome of excess screen usage is the way it transfers your brain into the state of addiction. The gush of the pleasure-causing dopamine we receive from our digital device usage stimulates the reward centre of our brain and deceitfully makes us want more. Thus many of us discover ourselves entangled in a mesh of screen addiction.

Wrapping Up

Permitting kids device time may have pros and cons, though with a healthy balance you can optimize the benefits and prevent main drawbacks. Fixing limits is a splendid way to provide the balance needed by kids.

Think about your kid’s habits and what performs for them, but frame clear rules to set an upper limit of the amount of screen time children can intake daily. Kids can gain from screen viewing, though there can be excess of a good thing. Maintain wholesome limits of screen time for children to learn and enjoy from it, while still being happy, active and sleep soundly at night!