Researchers used parent diary data previously collected by the Child Development Supplement Panel Study of Income Dynamics at the University of Michigan, for which the first available year was 1997 and the latest was 2014.
For children under the age of 2, daily screen time went from 1.32 hours in 1997 to 3.05 hours in 2014, with television accounting for over 2½ hours of screen time in 2014, compared to half an hour in 1997. For children ages 3 to 5, screen time averaged 2.47 hours in 1997 and did not change significantly by 2014, but TV also came to represent the majority of the screen time; going from just over an hour in 1997 to over two hours in 2014. The rise in the time spent in front of a TV comes despite a changing landscape of available electronic screens for kids.
Because of this, in 2016 the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended avoiding screens altogether in kids under 18 months, watching only high-quality programming and co-viewing between 18 months and 2 years of age, and limiting screen time to one hour per day for kids ages 2 to 5.
Source: CNN | Screen time for kids under 2 more than doubles, study finds, https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/18/health/kids-screen-time-tv-study/index.html | © 2019 Cable News Network
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