How Much Is Too Much Screen Time A Day?

"I need my child to sit and wait while I cook."

"I brought my child with me for dinner with my friends and he is fidgeting non-stop."

"Ah, I'm too tired to occupy her, there's nothing to do."

These may be some of your thoughts when you choose to pull out your devices to distract your child.

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What Expert Says?

Technological devices are unavoidable in today's society - their convenience and benefits to our lives make them almost indispensable. Think of a day that you don't spend moments on your gadgets, phones or TV. How often is that?

Yet for everything in life, there are its good and bad. While some of its content does bring the world closer together, there has been rising concerns of screen time, especially for young children. The issues range from having short attention span, developing myopia, behavioural problems, addiction, obesity and the list goes on.

But, the question that we often have is, how much is too much?

First, let's take a look at what are considered "screens". They include any devices with a screen such as a smartphone, computer, television, or video game console. Some examples of content are video-calls, television cartoons, YouTube videos and also educational games on phone applications. Content like e-books are excluded as screen time[1].

The KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) led a study and developed a set of guidelines for early childhood up to adolescents in 2022. Here are their recommended screen time each day[2]:

• For infants (below 12 months): No screen viewing time, including background screen time

• For toddlers (12-17 months): No screen time

• For toddlers (18-35 months): Less than 1 hour

• For preschoolers (3 to 7 years old): Recreational screen viewing time to be limited to less than one hour

• For children and adolescents (7-18 years old)[3]: KKH recognised that recreational screen time more than 2 hours daily for this group of children, is associated with the most adverse health outcomes and hence recommends to limit screen time to less than 2 hours daily.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) provided similar screen time guidelines and added on to suggest that parents co-view the screens with their children to help them understand what they are seeing. This can also aid in increasing social engagement between the adult and child for language development and conversations to occur - help children apply what they learn from screens to the real world!

Several studies were conducted in Singapore on screen time and we have included some findings here for your information:

1. Ebbeck et al. (2016) found that children aged 1- to 7-year-olds spent time on smartphones or touch screen tablets daily. This included a shocking finding that 3-year-olds spent 36 mins daily on smartphones. To think, television viewing was not included as screen time in this study - the total screen time of these children may be much higher! The parents/caregivers in this study had most concerns on children's vision deterioration and addiction to the devices.

2. On parents' motivation in letting their 1- to 5-year-old children use devices, Chen et al. (2019) found that parents have a purpose behind the use - they set out to gratify cognitive (as a learning platform), affective (they bond with children by using the devices together and having conversations about it after), and tension release needs (to 'babysit' them while they're busy or to entertain) in children.

3. Parents' daily use of media can predict children's daily use too: If parents use their devices, their children would do so as well. The hours that children are engaged in devices were found to be between 30mins to almost 5 hours on weekday for 2- to 5-year-olds. With this finding, Chia et al. (2022) shared their concern that this excessive use of devices may form addictive habits and affect children's development in cognitive and physical aspects.

These studies found high and frequent usage of screen time in young children and despite parents knowing the risks behind, their concerns were not reflected in their actions to reduce the use.

Tips To Consider

We know that it can truly be challenging for you as a parent to constantly and consistently engage your child in physical (or rather, real world) activities in this digitally-driven world. Hence we have here some tips for you to consider when the thought of giving your child some screen time crosses your mind:

Before wanting to manage children's / teens' use of media, it is key that we as adults manage our use so that we can be role models to our children. With this:

• Create realistic and accountable goals. It may be challenging to remove screen time entirely from the start, so you can try reducing minutes to make this achievable first!

• Set rules and time. Ensuring that daily routines are not affected by screen time by setting rules. E.g. screen time only occurs in the late afternoon and not during dinners. After which children will shower and prepare for winding down to bedtime. This helps to prevent children from seeing screen time as a reward for eating dinner and also to create good living habits!

Other than the above tips, we have below some activities that you might like while trying to remove screen time:

For children who enjoy sensory activities

Have some age-appropriate busybags or busybooks when you're bringing your child out. It is often the waiting times that make children feel bored, become restless/impatient and either demands for mobile devices or drive you to offer devices to stop their tantrums (Think: queuing for dinner spot or waiting for food to be served at restaurants). These are hands-on, engaging activities packed in a bag which children can play independently for some quiet time!

(Image taken from smartparents.sg)

For children who love talking!

Jokes and riddles are great conversations and intrigue children. Younger children may not understand the humour just yet, but introducing them when young would help to work on their creativity!

For children who enjoy reading

When it comes to books, it is always good to pack it on the go so that you and your child have one in hand! Ebooks are rising in trend among the older children as they become tech-savvy and like the lightweight when they are out.

Also, interest books on various topics would help to widen their knowledge while "waiting". For young children who are yet unable to recognise words, we would recommend big picture books as well as sticker books to engage them in "reading". This will definitely boost their willingness on reading when they are older!

For older children

We would encourage reading materials too, or even puzzles like such! Our team enjoys such thinking puzzles and find them challenging as adults (Although this says 6 and up). Instead of letting your older child play it on his/her own, make it an engaging game by taking turns to set up and solve - we often find ourselves doing this while waiting for our meals to be served at restaurants! This definitely helps to create a game company and build on the relationship that you have with your child. (Image taken from smartgames.eu)

For adolescents

Instead of activities, we recommend establishing special spots in the house for family time, engage in meaningful discussions (remember our previous post?). How about movie sessions together?

Ultimately for this age group, it is for us to guide and educate them in discovering the benefits of media as well as the purpose of usage.

We Say....

We might see usage of devices as easy way out to fill up children's boredom, but how easy is it for you to "take the device back" from the child when the limit is up? Did the authoritarian side of you appear? 🙈

With technology and content that we are able to receive via screen media being so helpful in our day-to-day life, we are not going to take it away entirely. However, being parents and/or caregivers, we always have the responsibility to be mindful towards introducing things to children. It is a lot on the limit as well as activities that they engage in while using devices.

"We cannot insulate children from technology, but we need to ensure that they are not harmed in any way by it."[4]

Often, instead of videos, some parents may choose to let their children engage in educational applications seeing the educational benefits as marketed by the games. They perceive the educational aspects of these applications[3] and hence do not regard this as "screen time". Leaving you a thinker for your thoughts from this post, how educational are these "educational" applications?

Do you have an issue about screen media usage with your child?

Speak to us on how we can help!

[1] Jaymi (2020)

[2] KKH (2022)

[3] KKH (2021)

[4] Ebbeck et al. (2016)