The effect was boosted at weekends, with the peak lasting up to four hours and 50 minutes when watching TV.<\/p>\n
However, after this point a negative effect was reported.<\/p>\n
The authors describe this as a “Goldilocks effect” – referring to the version of the fairy story in which Goldilocks discovers, for instance, that the best porridge is neither too hot nor too cold.<\/p>\n
Young people’s screen time has increased with the rise of digital devices used at home.<\/p>\n
For example, children – including pre-schoolers aged three and four – are spending eight hours and 18 minutes a week online on average, according to a recent report by Ofcom.<\/p>\n
Their research stemmed from a larger survey about the habits of nearly 300,000 English 15-year-olds, explained co-author Andrew Przybylski at the University of Oxford.<\/p>\n
“We found that the negative effect of screen time was about a third of the size as not getting regular sleep or a regular breakfast,” he told the BBC.<\/p>\n
But Dr Przybylski acknowledged that most children don’t simply use one device during the day – and in fact often use more than one concurrently, such as when texting a friend while watching TV.<\/p>\n
‘Choose your battles’<\/h2>\n
He suggested that rather than totting up screen time and demanding that children stop using a device after a certain point, it might be more beneficial to negotiate longer sessions and suggest alternative activities when appropriate.<\/p>\n
“It’s not so much that it’s bad for a kid to play Minecraft for 12 hours on a Sunday, it’s that as parents we often don’t have a valued activity that we put in place of that,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s much more important that the parents focus their limited attention and resources on picking smart battles – that might be more important than having an arbitrary cut-off.”<\/p>\n
The paper’s results on the “Goldilocks effect” were welcomed by Sue Fletcher-Watson, a developmental psychologist at the University of Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
“I think that is quite new – at least, previously, it’s only been a hypothesis.<\/p>\n
“It’s really nice to have concrete evidence on that idea,” she told the BBC.<\/p>\n
However, she said there were still questions about how using digital devices affects children over time.<\/p>\n
“One of the categories they look at is using smartphones – but that covers a huge variety of activities,” she said.<\/p>\n
If an activity exposes a child to trolling or cyberbullying, then it would naturally be likely to have a more negative effect on mental wellbeing, she suggested.<\/p>\n
Letter wars<\/h2>\n
On Christmas Day last year, an open letter was published in the Guardian by a group of educators and psychologists that called for better guidelines, since screen-based lifestyles might harm children’s health.<\/p>\n
This was followed in January by a another open letter – co-signed by Dr Przybylski and others – that argued more evidence was needed before the full effects of children’s use of screens was understood.<\/p>\n “I do feel there needs to be much clearer guidance available,” said Prof Jayne Osgood at Middlesex University, a signatory of the first letter.<\/p>\n “Parents and educators feel ill-prepared to know what is an appropriate amount of exposure to screen time for children.”<\/p>\n In 2013, a Public Health England briefing paper warned that too much time in front of screens combined with a sedentary lifestyle was harming children’s wellbeing and increasing their anxiety.<\/p>\n “A few simple steps, like regular physical activity and spending time together as a family at breakfast and dinner, can minimise young people’s screen time and support their wellbeing,” said Eustace de Sousa at Public Health England, reacting to today’s research.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A study of screen time and mental wellbeing among teenagers has suggested moderate use of devices may be beneficial in a connected world. The researchers collected self-reported data from 120,000 English 15-year-olds about their digital device habits. They found a “Goldilocks effect” where a few hours of device-use seemed to boost mental wellbeing. One developmental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[3001,3002,3003,3004],"class_list":["post-284865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-device-screens","tag-health-concern","tag-mobile-phone-use","tag-technology-devices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Friends](\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/73B0\/production\/_93561692_thinkstockphotos-618431318-1.jpg\")
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