Dana and Josh Infald with their 16-month-old daughter, Lily, at their Toronto home. The couple have chosen to raise their daughter without television or tablets.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
A few years ago, the daycare where Dana Infald was working sent out a survey to parents asking about their children’s screen use.
Even before the results came in, Ms. Infald, an early childhood educator in Toronto, knew what to expect. It was already obvious to her which kids had screens and which were screen-free.
The latter group, she said, had stronger language development and longer attention spans.
“They would make more eye contact with the educators,” she said. “There was more serve-and-return with their language. You could just see it.”
With the toddlers who had an excessive amount of screen time, “you could see there was this need for constant stimulation.”
In recent years, much of the conversation around digital technology and kids has focused on school-aged children – on limiting social media among teenagers and restricting phone use in classrooms. But a growing body of evidence shows that the potential harms can begin much earlier, with experts increasingly urging policy-makers to treat screens as a public health issue.
The family favours books and other screen-free activities to encourage early childhood development.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Last week, researchers at Western University published a study focused on toddlers that found a connection between excessive screen time and poor language development. This followed a widespread study in Britain warning of a “baby blind spot” among policy-makers around screen time for children under the age of 5.
The Canadian Paediatric Society currently recommends no screen time (with the exception of video calling) for children under 2. And for children between ages 2 and 5, the recommendation is to limit screens to less than one hour a day.
But according to an earlier report from ParticipACTION, fewer than half of children in Canada are currently meeting these recommendations.
In the case of the Western University study, researchers conducted MRI scans on the brains of two-year-olds. They found that the children who spent more time with screens each day (including televisions, tablets and iPhones) had reduced volumes in the area of the brain associated with language development, and poorer language skills.
Opinion: We’re asking the wrong question about children and screen time
“They weren’t expressing themselves as clearly as other two-year-olds,” said Emma Duerden, one of the co-authors of the study, and a professor of child psychology and neuroscience at Western.
What’s more, the study showed that children who had more screen time at the age of 2 were also likely to have more screen time at the age of 3.
“It just becomes habit,” Dr. Duerden said. ”We just fall into routines and patterns very easily that can become hard to break.”
When Ms. Infald had her own child, it was because of her experience at that daycare that she decided to parent without screens. Her daughter is now 16 months old and has never watched television or movies. She doesn’t use a tablet and only occasionally uses her mother’s phone to video chat with relatives.
So far, it feels like it’s been beneficial to her daughter’s development.
“She can tell us exactly what she wants. Her vocabulary is through the roof. Every day, she’s saying something new.”
Compared with other toddlers, Ms. Infald said, “she just has this attention span and imagination that seems to not get bored.”
Dr. Duerden acknowledged that limiting screens can become more challenging as kids grow older. Digital technologies have become ubiquitous everywhere – including in schools, with the use of Chromebooks and tablets.
Lancet research calls for big tech regulation to reduce addictive design features
But while many teachers use these as teaching tools in classrooms, she said, others rely on them for classroom management, including to occupy kids during lunch hour or breaks.
And in her conversations with teachers and educators, even they are sometimes unaware of the recommendations around screen limits. They’re often surprised to learn that the time children spend with screens at school goes toward their daily screen limit.
“I do think it’s a public health issue because it involves so many different individuals at so many different levels. We have governments. We have provincial public health. Schools. Parents. And the students.”
Ms. Infald acknowledges that we need technology as a tool. “But at the same time, it can be harmful.”
Toronto parent Caroline Dönni’s biggest concern is the time that screens take away from everything else.
Instead of screens, Ms. Dönni said that her two kids, ages 5 and 8, read books and listen to audiobooks. They play with their toys and spend time outside with their friends.
“There’s so much in childhood to do – to play and explore. I feel like they’re so busy doing their own things that I wouldn’t even know when to incorporate TV,” she said.
Lily plays outdoors with her parents in Toronto. Her mother, an early childhood educator, says her experience working with toddlers shaped her approach to limiting screen time.Jennifer Roberts/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Infald recognizes that parenting screen-free might feel like additional labour for already overburdened parents. She’s currently a stay-at-home parent and understands that not all families are in the same position.
“No shame to other parents who do use screens,” she said. But she does have some advice for those who want to limit them in their households.
“You really just have to give them things to do,” she said. She makes a schedule for each day at home with her daughter, breaking the days into chunks. “So you’re not thinking, ‘Oh my God, I have 12 hours. What are we going to do?’”
It’s a lot of work, but worth it. “I really feel like it’s going to help her down the road with everything.”