If pediatricians can’t recommend screen time limits, then who will?
Quartz | Brigitte Vittrup | Associate Professor of Child Development, Texas Woman’s University | 25th October 2015
This month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced a disappointing decision.
Sixteen years after they published their formal recommendations discouraging any form of screen time before age two—and 14 years after making recommendations to limit screen time for older children to no more than two hours per day—they are now recanting those recommendations, calling them “outdated.”
No replacement for social interaction
Beyond exposure to racy or violent content, time spent engaged with various media technologies often displaces more active and interactive endeavors.
Neuroscience research shows that infants and toddlers need a lot of direct interactions with people in order to promote healthy brain growth and appropriate cognitive, social and emotional skills. The two-dimensional, non-interactive platform of most screen media simply cannot act as a stand-in for this important developmental function.
