Some parents do not allow preschool children to watch TV or play video games, fearing that such a pastime will negatively affect their fragile psyche. We found out whether the scientific data reinforce this fear.
The fact that young children should be protected from viewing cartoons, write on specialized portals and in Blogs. In articles on sites children's hospitals and in Media It is claimed that for babies under the age of three years, cartoons should be prohibited, and up to two years. full The ban on watching any video, as it "worsens memory, attention and provokes the development of depression." Among other dangerous consequences are called deterioration vision, underdevelopment cerebral hemispheres and even Epilepsy. In some publications It is noted that the viewing of some animated works is capable of “not only to slow down or violate, but to stop” the development of the child. Other experts emphasize that, although it is not easy to spend many hours on cartoons and it will not hurt the background of the background for children. Such a point of view adheres to, for example, pediatrician Evgeny Komarovsky.
WHO Recommends To avoid any interaction with the screens up to a year: watching videos, games, etc. Those who are from one year to four years can be held daily for up to an hour, but parents are advised to comply with the principle of "the less, the better." Recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics A little stricter - No cartoons, games and other video content (with the exception of video chats with relatives) to two years, from two to five years - no more than 60 minutes. per day. Experts emphasize that at this time it is better to be an adult nearby, who will comment on what is happening on the screen. American Academy of Children's and Teenage Psychiatry shares The time spent at the screen to educational and leisure. In the first case, watching videos and games is acceptable from 18 months, in the second - from two years. Experts recommend that children on leisure content with no more than an hour on weekdays and no more than three hours on weekends, and the organization does not give advice on the weekend. At the same time, scientists strongly recommend that you do not use cartoons as a means of reassuring the child or as a “digital nanny” that will take the attention of the offspring and gives the father or mother the opportunity to go about their business.
In the first months of life vision The child is uncommon, and the distance at which he sees well is small. For at least a year and a half, children are fascinated to change colors and figures, but cannot correlate the image on the screen with similar objects in the real world, Explains Pediatrician David Hill from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is confirmed by experiments. In 2013, a group of scientists from the USA showed Children aged 15-16 months of image of animals on the touch screen, and then their volumetric figures. When pressing a certain place on the screen, the sound of the corresponding animal was heard, on the figure this effect was achieved by pressing the button located in the same place. It turned out that after interacting with the screen, the children did not tolerate the experience they received to the physical object - and vice versa. Scientists concluded that for a child at this age, it is impossible to master a new skill in a three -dimensional world, training in a two -dimensional image.
Pediatrician Jennifer Cross Explains: “The child will not learn to fold cubes, watching them on the screen. He will study when he touches the cubes, feels their texture and weight, uses the test and error method to learn how to put one cube on another. ” She adds that the ability to correlate what is happening on the screen and in the real world is formed in children by about two years.
Thus, even the benefits of watching even educational content are not used to the age of two years. But to harm the kids cartoons and games are quite capable of. A group of Singapore scientists Provedthat a long viewing of the video can change the structure of the brain waves in the child. Researchers included 437 pregnant women, and then their children born in a sample. When these children were a year old, the authors of the experiment asked women to fill out the questionnaire about the habits of the television of their own and their kids. Six months later, mothers with children were invited to remove the electroencephalogram. It turned out that the more time the children spent at the screen at the age of 12 months, the more active were low-frequency aunt waves in comparison with high-frequency beta waves. This meant that the brain of the studied babies was in a state of non -focusing and unremarking for cognitive activity.
Researchers invited these children to extensive neuropsychological testing at the age of nine, and scientists also collected the reviews of their parents and teachers about behavior and performance. Comparing all the information received, they came to the conclusion that with every additional hour that the child spent on watching a video at the age of 12 months, he had more and more difficulties with concentration of attention and executive activities in school age. At the same time, the authors of the article pay attention to the limitations of their conclusions - the study began in 2010, when tablets and smartphones were not yet widespread, and almost completely focused on watching the TV.
American scientists in 2019 Spent Magnetic resonance tomography 47 children from the age of three to five years and interviewed their parents about how much time their sons and daughters spend behind the screen, what content they watch, prefer games or videos, whether there is a TV in their room, and at their direct disposal-a tablet. Comparing the results of MRI and questionnaires, the researchers found: the easier for the child access to the screen, the more the microstructural integrity of the white substance of the brain in areas in the zones, which are responsible for the language development, literacy skills (that is, the ability to follow instructions, plan their actions in accordance with the aim, change the reaction depending on the context and selectively pay attention necessary incentives). The same conclusions were fair for children who preferred passive viewing of rollers to interactive interaction and carried out many hours with a tablet or other device. Such results could be attributed to the fact that parents had no ability to occupy a child somehow differently. However, all families from the sample had a high socio-economic status-therefore, scientists say, most likely understood the need for a comprehensive development of the child and could provide him with various forms of pastime.
The connection between watching videos and problems with language development Identified and researchers from Canada. After interviewing parents of 894 children aged six to 24 months and having checked the speech abilities of the kids, they came to the conclusion that every half an hour of time spent during the day by the screen increased the risk of speech delay by 49%. Even the TV turned on in the background during family dinners negatively influenced the language development of children from two to six years old, found out French scientists. Experts explain this by the fact that, hearing at the same time both sounds from the screen and the conversation of parents, the child experiences difficulties with concentration on one source of sound and, accordingly, perceives speech worse.
Scientists from the University of Ohio Markthat frequent watching a TV usually negatively affects the executive function of preschoolers. The authors of the study created a multidimensional model taking into account the age of the start of regular viewing of the video, the type of consumed content, the television channels that the child watching, and the device that he use are watching at this time. It turned out that those who started watching videos at an earlier age and who are more often watching cartoons, especially on channels, where the narrative are interrupted by advertising pauses, are worse, do worse. Scientists explained the negative impact of advertising by the fact that because of it, the child is regularly distracted and loses the ability to hold his attention to one story for a long time. The only one of the children's channels analyzed in the framework of the study, the moderate viewing of which stimulated the executive function - PBS KIDS, where, in particular, they showed the “SEZAM Street”, “Dinosaur train”, “Wild Cat” and “What Martha will say”.
British scientists discoveredThe child spends more time at the screen aged six months to three years, the worse his sleep - he sleeps less at night and a little more during the day, he also needs more time to fall asleep. It turns out that even at three years old, that is, at the age when most authoritative medical organizations are already allowed to include cartoons or other videos for an hour, those children who are deprived of this entertainment are best sleeping.
Australian scientists Identified Another negative effect: it turned out that each next hour spent during the week to watch a video under the age of two years, subsequently increased the risk of increasing the body mass index relative to the average in the population. A similar relationship is already in children 4-13 years old demonstrated Researchers from the Netherlands, and in children at the age of five - their American Colleagues.
A group of scientists from New York University tried Find outAs the child is affected by different types of media content: educational for children from two to six years old, entertaining for the same age group, any content for schoolchildren and adolescents and videos, oriented to an adult audience. The study was attended by 99 couples of mothers and children of Latin American origin with a low level of parental education. Strange as it may seem, the chief predictor of children's aggressive behavior was not Hollywood militants or news, but cartoons intended for young children. Scientists found it difficult to give this phenomenon an explanation, but suggested that watching adolescent and adult content in preschool age could make a child’s behavior more aggressive in the future.
Thus, children under the age of two or three years should be completely protected from interaction with any screens, and later when turning on cartoons and other video content to be guided by the rule "the older the child and the less time the time is spent, the better." According to scientists, even the TV on the background negatively affects the development of preschool children.
Image on the cover: Image by Andrii Sinenkyi from Pixabay
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