Young children's screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 12 countries

Abstract

This study examined children’s screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in a large cohort (n=2209) of 8-to-36-month-olds sampled from 15 labs across 11 countries. Caregivers reported that young infants and toddlers with no online schooling requirements were exposed to more screen time during lockdown than before lockdown. While this was exacerbated for countries with longer lockdowns, there was no evidence that the increase in screen time during lockdown was associated with children’s demographics, e.g., age, SES. However, screen time during lockdown was negatively associated with child age and SES and positively associated with caregiver screen time and attitudes towards children’s screen time. The results highlight the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on young children’s screen time.

Not all babies are in the same boat: Exploring the effects of socioeconomic status, parental attitudes, and activities during the 2020 COVID‐19 pandemic on early Executive Functions

“…The strength of the association between screen use and SES did not vary from before-to-during Spring lockdown. Thus, these data contribute to a literature linking lower SES to increased screen time among infants and toddlers (Anand & 2005;Bergmann et al, 2021;Matarma et al, 2016;Ribner et al, 2017;Trinh et al, 2020). Moreover, screen use mediates the association between SES and CEF, and partially mediates the association between SES and Regulation.…”

“…Participants were recruited through online advertisements on research-related websites and social media groups. Twenty-eight percent of our sample are also reported on in Kartushina et al (2021) with regards to separate questions relating to the impact of the home environment on language development, and 77% percent of our Spring 2020 screen use data are reported on in Bergmann et al (2021) with regard to summaries of changes in screen use over lockdown.…”

“…Respondents were asked to report on the kinds of activities that they did with their child—for example reading, singing, arts and crafts, cooking and baking – on a scale of 0 (“Did not do at all”) to 9 (“Performed this activity more than 4 h most days”). Questions were based on a home activities measure developed to investigate the effects of COVID‐19 lockdowns on language development in different countries (Kartushina et al, 2021 ), and a screen‐use measure developed to investigate changes in and impacts of infant screen use in different countries (Bergmann et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Nearly a third of parents of toddlers and preschoolers in the UK reported that their child spent 3 or more hours watching a screen during the first lockdown (Dodd et al, 2020 ), and multiple studies indicate that the pandemic triggered an increase in children's screen time across many countries globally (Bergmann et al, 2021 ; Chambonniere et al, 2021 ; Guan et al, 2020 ; Schmidt et al, 2020 ).…”

Electronic screen device usage and screen time among preschool-attending children in a suburban area of Sri Lanka

“…It is very likely that the use of screen devices and screen time have markedly increased among pre-schoolers as electronic devices were extensively used for educational purposes during the COVID 19 pandemic. A recent large scale survey done in several countries reported a significant increase in screen time among preschool children globally during the pandemic [ 31 ]. Another survey carried out among children aged between 3–7 years from six countries revealed an average of 50-min increase in daily screen time during the pandemic, of which approximately 40 min accounted for entertainment [ 10 ].…”