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Toddlers who use touchscreens are less able to resist distraction, study suggests

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Toddlers who use touchscreen devices regularly are quicker to notice new objects in their line of vision and less able to ignore distractions, a new study has found.

The use of smartphones and tablets by babies and toddlers has grown exponentially in recent years, fuelling concern it could affect their development of attention skills and cognition.

The study followed 12-month old children with varying levels of touchscreen use for two and a half years, assessing their attention span using an eye-tracker at 12 months, 18 months and three-and-a-half years.

By measuring how quickly the toddlers looked at objects appearing around the screen, the researchers from Birkbeck, University of London, King’s College London and University of Bath were able to assess how well there were able to ignore distracting objects.

‘Less able to ignore distracting objects’

A pre-school girl uses her "Ceibalita tablet" during a class in a public school in Montevideo, amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic, on August 11, 2020. - The Ceibal Project is the Uruguayan equivalent to the 'One Laptop per Child' project, through which all primary school children are equipped with a personal computer for free and have free access to an educational platform and pre-schoolers have access to tablets in class. (Photo by Pablo PORCIUNCULA / AFP) (Photo by PABLO PORCIUNCULA/AFP via Getty Images)
Millions of children around the world regularly use tablets and other touchscreen devices (Photo: AFP/Getty)

“We found that infants and toddlers with high touchscreen use were faster to look at objects when they appeared and were less able to ignore distracting objects compared to the low users,” said Professor Tim Smith, from Birkbeck’s Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development.

While the study does not claim that increased touchscreen usage is directly or solely responsible for the differences in the children’s attention, it’s possible the more easily-distracted toddlers were more attracted to the electronic devices’ attention-grabbing features.

The results warrant further investigation, co-investigator Dr Rachael Bedford, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, said.

“What we need to know next is how this pattern of increased looking to distracting objects on screens relates to attention in the real-world: is it a positive sign that the children have adapted to the multitasking demands of their complex everyday environment or does it relate to difficulties during tasks that require concentration?” she added.

Exposure to screens

Many recent studies suggest parents and teachers should limit the amount of screen time, or time using and interacting with electronic devices that children are exposed to, to under two hours a day.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) does not recommend sedentary screen time (including watching videos or playing games on a tablet) for children under one at all and suggests limiting two-year olds to one hour of uninterrupted sedentary screen time.

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Screen time may affect child brain development, study suggests

Research suggests that white moderate exposure to screens can be beneficial to children’s psychosocial development, two hours or more of screen time each day could lead to behavioural issues.

A University of Alberta study linked two or more hours of screen time each day to “clinically significant behavioural problems”, including inattention, compared to those watching under 30 minutes daily.

Separate research from the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University published in 2019 found that spending a moderate amount of time using electronic devices each day could have a positive effect on children’s wellbeing and mental health.

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