The article title claims causality. The article body says the researchers didn't claim causality:
The review, conducted by researchers from four UK universities known as the Action on Digital Device Immersive Conditions Team, did not establish causal links between screen use and specific developmental conditions.
That's a problem because "using a screen as a babysitter" likely correlates with overworked poorer parents and thus a whole host of other developmental problems
Even for upper middle class parents, "using a screen as a babysitter" just means you're more stressed and have less hands around. My kiddo has not seen a screen at the age of 2, but that's just because he has two parents at home at 5pm everyday.
I made the error of wasting my time (ahem... it was fun while it lasted, at least) not having a kid until I turned 49... which meant our parents were too elderly (or dead) to help (my mom had me at 35) in any significant capacity, and the rest of my relatives (as it just so happened) already had plans to move away to FL before he was conceived.
This has resulted in so much stress (especially in the 3's and 4's, because he still doesn't sleep through the night in his own goddamn bed) that I arguably lost a job from it... 50+ year old bodies are simply not well-capable of handling toddlers for the more-than-fulltime-weekly hours that they require
I'm sure there are fringe benefits though but damn
I don't think child rearing is supposed to be as difficult as modern society makes it.
As you pointed out, you don't have a lot of help in raising your kid. You're expected to do it mostly with your partner (or god forbid alone).
They've done some studies of hunter gather tribes to determine who handled babies the most. Turns out the kids' actual parents only handled the kids for about half the time (I think even a little less)! The term for it is "alloparenting".
Evolution did not prime us for this level of child care. Good luck to you!
Even without going that far back, I imagine it was easier when parents kicked the kids out of the house and told them not to come back until dinner time.
> Even without going that far back, I imagine it was easier when parents kicked the kids out of the house and told them not to come back until dinner time.
Did people ever do that with under-twos? Or under-fives?
The big difference in more recent times was community and extended family help, and at least one parent having more time at home.
Evidently there was quite a bit of handwringing in the 1950s that the "nuclear family" was bad for children and would lead to more divorce, since there were no longer grandparents and aunts and uncles around to help with childrearing.
I don't like the screen time generalization either.
What about watching a tv show with a parent explaining? What about trying a videogame with a controller on an actual game console, experiencing remote controlling something in a screen (Spoiler alert: amazing results, I have a video with my daughter shocked at age 2).
Smartphones used as a babysitter with a f2p game is probably garbage time
This happens a lot in mainstream science and journalism. Another famous example is the often misquoted study (from McKinsey?) about DEI improving company results. The authors didn’t claim causality, since the most likely explanation is just that already large companies were more likely to adopt policies that discriminate based on race or gender. But virtually all news articles and company policies mistakenly referenced the study as if it had established causality.
Yeah it seems crazy to me that this is news. Here in France the government officially recommends to avoid screens at all costs for under 3 years omds and as much as possible under 6. There are tons of studies showing it hinders their development.
"The babies' stress reactions during smartphone use were comparable to those in the 'still-face' situation—that is, intentional ignoring." https://www.pmu.ac.at/aktuelles/detail/wenn-das-smartphone-d...
The article title claims causality. The article body says the researchers didn't claim causality:
> The article title claims causality.
Maybe they edited the title since you saw it, but currently there's no claims of causation unless you think "can" and "will" are synonyms.
'can damage' means 'sometimes causal'.
If there's no causal link, they should say 'associated with' or 'correlated with'.
That's a problem because "using a screen as a babysitter" likely correlates with overworked poorer parents and thus a whole host of other developmental problems
Even for upper middle class parents, "using a screen as a babysitter" just means you're more stressed and have less hands around. My kiddo has not seen a screen at the age of 2, but that's just because he has two parents at home at 5pm everyday.
I made the error of wasting my time (ahem... it was fun while it lasted, at least) not having a kid until I turned 49... which meant our parents were too elderly (or dead) to help (my mom had me at 35) in any significant capacity, and the rest of my relatives (as it just so happened) already had plans to move away to FL before he was conceived.
This has resulted in so much stress (especially in the 3's and 4's, because he still doesn't sleep through the night in his own goddamn bed) that I arguably lost a job from it... 50+ year old bodies are simply not well-capable of handling toddlers for the more-than-fulltime-weekly hours that they require
I'm sure there are fringe benefits though but damn
I don't think child rearing is supposed to be as difficult as modern society makes it.
As you pointed out, you don't have a lot of help in raising your kid. You're expected to do it mostly with your partner (or god forbid alone).
They've done some studies of hunter gather tribes to determine who handled babies the most. Turns out the kids' actual parents only handled the kids for about half the time (I think even a little less)! The term for it is "alloparenting".
Evolution did not prime us for this level of child care. Good luck to you!
Even without going that far back, I imagine it was easier when parents kicked the kids out of the house and told them not to come back until dinner time.
> Even without going that far back, I imagine it was easier when parents kicked the kids out of the house and told them not to come back until dinner time.
Did people ever do that with under-twos? Or under-fives?
The big difference in more recent times was community and extended family help, and at least one parent having more time at home.
I don’t have hard evidence, but when I was a kid I enjoyed the children’s book ‘Five children and it’, written ~1900
The children cart their two year old sibling around with them everywhere (sans parents) and it’s totally unremarkable.
Evidently there was quite a bit of handwringing in the 1950s that the "nuclear family" was bad for children and would lead to more divorce, since there were no longer grandparents and aunts and uncles around to help with childrearing.
Interesting. If so, they were right.
And banning screens for the first several decades of your child's life correlates with being a billionaire.
I don't like the screen time generalization either. What about watching a tv show with a parent explaining? What about trying a videogame with a controller on an actual game console, experiencing remote controlling something in a screen (Spoiler alert: amazing results, I have a video with my daughter shocked at age 2).
Smartphones used as a babysitter with a f2p game is probably garbage time
This happens a lot in mainstream science and journalism. Another famous example is the often misquoted study (from McKinsey?) about DEI improving company results. The authors didn’t claim causality, since the most likely explanation is just that already large companies were more likely to adopt policies that discriminate based on race or gender. But virtually all news articles and company policies mistakenly referenced the study as if it had established causality.
The ADDICT, nice
There’s no reason for kids under 6 to ever look at a screen.
Yeah it seems crazy to me that this is news. Here in France the government officially recommends to avoid screens at all costs for under 3 years omds and as much as possible under 6. There are tons of studies showing it hinders their development.
I don't have kids myself, but I understand there is good educational programming on television for small children.
Not in my opinion. Certainly nothing like as good as adult attention or play.
"Landmark" review by an advocacy group. Not a good review, either.