Study: Tablet use may inhibit toddlers’ interaction with parents
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Key takeaways:
- Male toddlers took longer to acknowledge a request for behavior.
- More joint attention during play with a traditional toy was associated with better language skills.
Frequent use of touch-screen tablet games by toddlers may inhibit crucial interactions with their parents, according to preliminary research published in JAMA Network Open.
Screen time at an early age has been associated with delays in communication and problem-solving skills for toddlers, and its use topped a recent poll regarding parents’ concerns about children’s health.
One of the authors of the new study told Healio that although digital addiction is often thought of as an issue for older children and adults, “compulsive use of screens appears to start in toddlerhood.”
“Very few if any studies have measured compulsive use of screens in children this young,” Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute at Seattle Children’s, told Healio.
“Although research shows that they spend almost 30% of their waking hours in front of screens, very little research focuses on their use of screens, and media habits start early,” Christakis said.
The researchers recruited 63 neurotypical toddlers aged between 18 and 32 months and tested “how readily children would return [a] toy or electronic device and how they would respond to a bid for attention from a parent.” Specifically, they sat with parents and toddlers at a table and provided the toddlers with:
- a farm toy;
- a tablet showing a child playing with the farm toy;
- a tablet with a farm-themed puzzle to complete;
- a tablet with farm-themed game to play; and
- a tablet with the toddler’s favorite app open.
After 1 minute of a toddler’s exposure to a toy or tablet, a researcher and a caregiver — sitting on opposite sides of the toddler — took turns bidding for the toddlers’ attention. In one scenario, the researcher attempted to redirect the toddlers’ attention to other toys or to posters on the wall. In another, caregivers attempted to engage with the toddlers for 2 minutes. At the end, the researcher asked for the toy or tablet back.
According to the researchers, toddlers responded to fewer prompts when they were playing the farm-themed game, “in which the child cares for farm animals, such as sheering sheep” (crossed random effects model, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.24 to 0.06 prompts). They also reported that the negative impact of the game grew bigger as a child’s age increased (tau = 2.30; 95% CI, 0.05 to 0).
The results showed that the effect was larger among male toddlers, who took longer than female toddlers to respond to prompts (interaction of content and sex, 0.75; 95% CI, 1.36 to 0.17). The researchers also noted that the more a toddler used media at home, the more likely they were to ignore prompts during the study (P < .001).
“Prior studies have shown that early screen use is associated with delayed language,” Christakis said. “This study elucidates what part of the underlying mechanism for that may be. Namely, that they deprive toddlers of opportunities to reciprocally engage with caregivers, which is a critical way children learn language and social skills.”
The researchers noted several limitations, including that the project was a preliminary, proof-of-concept study.
Future studies should identify “children who are especially high-risk for early compulsive use of media” and develop “interventions to promote healthy and limited screen use in early childhood,” Christakis said. “Human back-and-forth interaction is essential for children’s cognitive and social development.”
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Webb SJ, et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.18492.
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