If you\u2019ve been in our waiting room recently, you\u2019ve probably noticed our bulletin board about screen time guidelines\u00a0for kids. \u00a0And if you\u2019ve been in one of our therapy sessions lately, you\u2019ve likely heard one of your therapists talk about this same issue. \u00a0It\u2019s something that comes up a lot here at Advent. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because we are convinced that it matters. \u00a0And we are convinced that there are very real risks to overuse of screen time, especially in very young children. \u00a0Stay with me here. \u00a0I am not out to add to your parenting challenges. \u00a0Trust me. \u00a0I am a parent too. \u00a0But I am here to call out the cultural norm and help us navigate a media-heavy society responsibly (and equip\u00a0our children to do the same).\u00a0\u00a0So let\u2019s start with the obvious question:<\/p>\n
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Research has begun to highlight a number of potential ill-effects of heavy media use in kids, but in this post,\u00a0we will focus on language development (it happens to be my area of expertise as well). \u00a0The bottom line is that media use can interfere with language development and therefore, communication. \u00a0Young children (under 2) cannot effectively learn from programs even if the programs\u00a0are educational, as they cannot translate information from the 2-D world (TV) and use it in the 3-D (reality). \u00a0Furthermore, the more time a young child spends in front of a screen, the less time they will spend interacting with an actual human, or with a stack of blocks, or books, etc. \u00a0 And we know that language processing and communication development happens rapidly in the early years. \u00a0We also know that real human interaction is the catalyst for this process.<\/p>\n
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Check out some of the research:<\/p>\n