Screen time affects your toddler more than you think.
Children who were exposed to a lot of screen time before the age of two showed changes in brain development that were linked to slower decision-making and increased anxiety in their teenage years.
This research was conducted by Assistant Professor Tan Ai Peng and her team from the A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential (A*STAR IHDP) and the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS), using data from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort.
Published in eBioMedicinethe study followed the same children for more than a decade, with brain imaging at multiple time points.
They mapped a possible biological pathway from childhood screen exposure to adolescent mental health.
The research focuses on childhood, a period when brain development is fastest and especially sensitive to environmental influences.
Furthermore, the amount and type of screen exposure in childhood is largely determined by parenting practices and by the awareness of parents and caregivers, which calls for early guidance and intervention.
Children with longer infant screen time showed accelerated maturation of brain networks responsible for visual processing and cognitive control.
The researchers suggest that this may be a result of the intense sensory stimulation that screens provide. In particular, screen time measured at ages three and four did not show the same effects, showing that childhood is a particularly sensitive period.
“Accelerated maturation occurs when certain brain networks develop too quickly, often in response to adversity or other stimuli. During normal development, brain networks gradually become more specialized over time. However, in children with high screen exposure, the networks that control vision and cognition specialized more quickly before they had developed the efficient connections needed for complex thinking. This can limit flexibility and resilience, limiting the child’s ability to adapt later in life,” said Dr. Huang Pei, first author of the book. the research.
