Screen use and emotional, behavioral, and social development in children

 Are there cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of screen use with child and adolescent psychosocial development? In this cohort study of 3786 children, after adjustment for family functioning, no significant associations were found between screen use and developmental difficulties at 5 or 10 years of age, and an association with higher difficulties score at 15 years of age were only seen for very high use of electronic games and not other forms of screen use. Early high screen use was associated with greater difficulties at 10 years of age, but this association was not sustained at 15 years of age. Increased screen use was not consistently associated with poorer development, highlighting the limitation of current guidelines solely focusing on duration of screen use.

The full study: 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.26804?guestAccessKey=72cdb23e-762b-4f66-a42a-69ca47969aca&utm_source=for_the_media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=080326