iPad Use by Kids Linked to Long Term Emotional Problems

An intriguing new study suggests that children as young as two years old who consume excessive amounts of digital media — the notorious “iPad kids” who are being babysat by tablet computers, basically —are more likely to have emotional and social issues later in life.

A team of American researchers arrived at this conclusion in a new paper in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, flagged by PsyPost and which should alarm any parent who’s tempted to palm off an iPad to placate their bored or crying kids.

The researchers took data from 269 participants who were caregivers to their children. These participants answered a survey on how their kids used media and their overall behavior, focusing especially on “problematic media use” or PMU, which is defined as addictive or excessive use of media technology with screens like smart phones, smart tablets, televisions, and other devices.

Caregivers assessed their kids on various behaviors such as how they used media technology and factors like “parental warmth and connection, and child social and emotional problems.” Researchers tracked children who ran the gamut in age from 2.5 to 5.5 years old.

After analyzing data from the questionnaire, the researchers found some interesting results: there was an uptick in PMU behaviors in children from ages 2.5 years and onwards.

Basically, the study seems to suggest that many young kids have issues with regulating their emotions, especially when they deal with digital media technologies. This makes perfect sense — they’re just children who can barely control themselves.

But the level of children’s emotional sensitivity, aggression and how much they watched TV also strongly predicted the initial level of PMU behavior.

And high amounts of PMU behavior are “associated with later aggression in childhood, even when controlling for initial levels of aggression,” the researchers write.

“I have studied problematic media use in adolescence for a number of years and wanted to see if the roots began in early childhood,” Brigham Young University human development professor and study lead author Sarah M. Coyne told PsyPost. “It would be wonderful if we could intervene when kids are young to prevent serious problems with media later on in life.”

For parents who are reading this blog post in a panic, the practical advice that you could take away from this study is to observe your kids and see how they relate to screen time.

And if you find they are bratty, possessive, or exhibit addictive behaviors with their screens, you probably want to nip that behavior in the bud in order to stave off problems in the future.

More on screens: This Company Wants to Pay You $2,400 to Avoid Screens for 24 Hours