Screen Time For Kids Under 2 More Than Doubles Since 1997, Study Finds

(CNN) — Screen time has more than doubled for children under 2 years old since 1997, a study published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found, with time spent in front of a TV as the main driver despite a changing screen landscape. Researchers used parent diary data previously collected by the Child Development Supplement Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the University of Michigan, for which the first available year was 1997 and the latest was 2014. For children under the age of 2, daily screen time went from 1.32 hours in 1997 to 3.05 hours in 2014, with television accounting for over 2½ hours of screen time in 2014, compared to half an hour in 1997. For children ages 3 to 5, screen time averaged 2.47 hours in 1997 and did not change significantly by 2014, but TV also came to represent the majority of the screen time; going from just over an hour in 1997 to over two hours in 2014. The rise in the time spent in front of a TV comes despite a changing landscape of available electronic screens for kids. Weiwei Chen, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the Department of Health Policy and Management at Florida International University, explains that as a health economist and parent, she wanted to understand how long kids are spending on screens. “I’m curious as a parent, as well as a researcher, to understand how much time our kids spend nowadays on smartphones, iPads, TV and all kinds of screens,” Chen said. Chen explains that in ...
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