Screen time for children-How much is beneficial or harmful 

With the development of science and technology, our world is changing. With the advancing world not only our habits, routine, priorities are changing but also our ways of thinking are changing. In this era of technology, the use of screen is increasing , our children use screen more than we did in our childhood.

 That's why parents raise the question; "How much screen time is safe for our children?"

Don't worry parents, we shall get the conclusion by thoroughly discussing the benefits and harms of use of screen considering various researches and science. So let's start!

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Child's Development and health

What impact will screens have on children’s development?

Children learn more from their physical activities than social media or gadgets. These gadgets hinder their physical exercise and thus reduce their effective learning. So parents should have a check on the usage time of screen of their children.

According to pew research  center, Parenting is more difficult today than it was 20 years before due to increase in the social  media usage. If you are getting comforts in this era using technology and machines then you also have to face some of their side effects, yeah parents are putting consuming their saved time in other activities e.g taking more care of their children. 

Moreover, excessive screen usage and less physical activity causes obesity in children , diabetes and many more health issues. That's why physical activity is necessary.

There is potential growth in the early years of a child so there should be proper physical activity and exercise to make their muscles work more efficiently and and develop normally.

Coronavirus and screen time

The COVID-19 pandemic increased significantly the screen time of children and adults because people pass more time indoors. The only way for people to keep themselves busy is screen usage. This creates negative health consequences. Specialists called for limiting the screen time and for a more active lifestyle by adding indoor games and exercise to people's routine.

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Brain development of children 

An increase in screen time has been associated with negative cognitive outcomes for children between 0 and 4.  A study on Korean children aged 24–30 months old found that toddlers with 3 hours of TV viewing per day were three times as likely to experience a language delay. Toddlers with higher TV time also scored lower on school readiness tests, which measured vocabulary, number knowledge, and classroom engagement. The same outcomes are not present in children older than 4. Children who watched more TV were found to have less brain connectivity between language, visual and cognitive control regions of the brain than their peers who watched less TV.

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Social interaction issues

Children who interact too much with screens, have very poor social interaction. This is because they don't know how to start conversation and they hesitate to speak to others. They feel uncomfortable to have a live talk. They becomes habitual of chatting in their room. On the other hand the children who don't have a large screen usage time feel comfortable to make new friends, playing with others and have a healthy social interaction. They go on talking to their toys or visual friends if they don't find one, so they can communicate well.

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Behavioral issues

Screen use also affects a child's behaviour. Children learn bad things like abusive language, faster than good things as compared to adults having awareness of right and wrong and developed character. Parents should manage the online activities and sites in reach of their children. Their are several applications and sites available on internet for parental control, including child mood, child games, children version of you tube and many others.

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Psychological problems

Children who are too much concerned to social media are diagnosed with stress and depression. Mood swings are very common in today's social media users , adults have a great control on their emotions so they are not that much expressive but children are, which is so much problematic for the parents ans they often complain about the unusual behaviour of their children. Psychiatrists are reporting more issues of depression among children and teens then other age groups.

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Academic performance

Approximately 47% of American children spend 2 or more hours per day on screen-based sedentary activities. Research results indicated children who had high amounts of screen time had delayed white matter development, decreased ability to rapidly name objects, and poorer literacy skills. 

Inborn skills and emotional coherence
Screen use can also affect interpersonal skills. UCLA researchers reported that sixth-graders who went five days without screen use were significantly better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders with average screen time. They don't get much time to spend with others and hearing their feelings. So they don't have that much spirit of helping others and solving their problems accordingly.

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Sleep disturbances

Excessive screen use specially at night causes sleep cycle disturbance.
The blue light, emitting from screens suppresses melatonin hormone production (which controls body's internal clock and cardiac rhythm). This cause the children to sleep late at night and they usually become late for school.

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Eyesight problems

There is emission of harmful radiation from the screen which weakens the eyesight. Children cells are more vulnerable to radiation absorption and thus they are at high risk.
Eye bags or dark circles are also the reason of excessive screen usage and inadequate sleep in children.

These were the harms of screen usage.
Now let's discuss its benefits in this technical age.

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The need of screen time 

It's very important to make your child stand with the current world and you have to allow your child sufficient screen time to get acknowledged with the social media, technology, media and others.
Your children will feel confident in society when he will have the modern equipment and awareness about the online world.
Parents can let their children play video games and try different applications, this can increase the child's knowledge and make them feel connected to online world. Parents can show their children educational content and make them engage with healthy online activities. They can let their children make phone calls to relatives and friends.

But one thing should be kept in mind
this all should have a time limit, the main role of child's development and learning is of physical activity , which shouldn't be compromised.

Conclusion 

Now let's come to conclusion
How much screen time is good for children?

The World Health Organization has released strict new Guidelines that show the screen time is :

▪︎None for kids younger than 2 years old

▪︎Just 60 minutes per day for 3 to 4 years old

This shows that before 2 years of age keep your child completely away from screen.
Then after 2 years you can allow 30 minutes of screen usage for educational content only.
And from 3 to 5 years of age this limit can be increased to 1 hour per day. You can allow your child playing video games in it.

Divide this researched time to whole day , don't allow your child to use screen continuously for 1 hour. Try to break this time in patches of 15 minutes.