Outdoor Play Mitigates Negative Effects of Screen Time in Children

Summary

Importance

It is unknown whether the association between increased screen time in childhood and later suboptimal neurodevelopment can be mitigated by frequency of outdoor play.

Aim

To investigate whether increased screen time at age 2 years is associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes at age 4 years and whether this association is mediated by frequency of outdoor play at 2 years and 8 months.

Design, environment and participants

Participants were a subsample from the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort Study for Mothers and Children (HBC Study, N = 1258). The children were born between December 2007 and March 2012 and were followed from 1 year 6 months to 4 years. The analysis was carried out from April 2021 to June 2022.

Screen time exposures of more than 1 hour per day at age 2 years were coded as higher screen time.

Main results and measures

Standardized scores were used for the communication, daily living skills, and socialization domains of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale, Second Edition, at age 4 years (mean [SD], 100 [15]). The mediating factor was frequency of outdoor play at age 2 years and 8 months, with 6 or 7 days per week coded as frequent outdoor play.

Results

Of 885 participants , 445 children (50%) were female; the mean (SD) screen time per day was 2.6 (2.0) hours. Causal mediation analyzes revealed that greater screen time at age 2 was associated with lower communication scores at age 4 (unstandardized coefficient b = −2.32, 95% CI, −4.03 to − 0.60), but the association was not mediated by the frequency of outdoor play.

Greater screen time was also associated with lower scores on daily living skills (b = −1.76; 95% CI, −3.21 to −0.31); 18% of this association was mediated by the frequency of outdoor play.

Frequency of outdoor play was associated with socialization (b = 2.73; 95% CI, 1.06 to 4.39), while increased screen time was not (b = −1.34 ; 95% CI, −3.05 to 0.36).

Conclusions and relevance

Greater screen time at age 2 was directly associated with poorer communication at age 4. It was also associated with daily living skills, but was alleviated by frequency of outdoor play at 2 years and 8 months , suggesting that outdoor play mitigated the association between increased screen time and suboptimal neurodevelopment.

Future research should specify the nature of the associations and intervention measures, allowing for specific interventions that reduce potential risk in screen time.

Comments

Osaka University researchers find that reducing the negative effects of screen time on little minds could be as simple as encouraging children to play outdoors

If you have young children, you’re probably worried about how much time they spend looking at a screen, whether it’s a tablet, phone, computer, or TV. You probably also want to know how screen time affects your child’s development and are wondering if there is anything she can do to balance the negative effects. New research from Japan indicates that more screen time at age 2 is associated with poorer communication and daily living skills at age 4 , but when children also play outdoors, some of these are reduced. the negative effects of screen time.

In the study published in JAMA Pediatrics , researchers followed 885 children ages 18 months to 4 years. They looked at the relationship between three key characteristics: average amount of screen time per day at age 2, amount of outdoor play at age 2 years and 8 months, and neurodevelopmental outcomes, specifically communication, daily living and socialization scores according to a standardized assessment tool called the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-II , at age 4 years.

"Although both communication and daily living skills were worse in 4-year-olds who had more screen time at age 2, outdoor play time had very different effects on these two study outcomes. neurological development," explains Osaka professor Kenji J. Tsuchiya. University and lead author of the study. “We were surprised to find that playing outside didn’t actually alter the negative effects of screen time on communication, but it did have an effect on daily living skills.”

Specifically, nearly one-fifth of the effects of screen time on daily living skills were mediated by outdoor play, meaning that increasing outdoor play time could reduce the negative effects of screen time in daily living skills by almost 20%. The researchers also found that, although not related to screen time, socialization was better in 4-year-olds who had spent more time playing outdoors at 2 years and 8 months of age.

“Taken together, our findings indicate that optimizing screen time in young children is really important for proper neurological development,” says Tomoko Nishimura, lead author of the study. "We also found that screen time is not related to social outcomes, and that even if screen time is relatively high, encouraging more outdoor play time could help keep children healthy and developing." properly".

These results are particularly important given recent COVID-19-related lockdowns around the world, which have generally led to more screen time and less time outdoors for children. Because digital device use is difficult to avoid even in very young children, more research on how to balance the risks and benefits of screen time in young children is eagerly awaited.