Children who are exposed to television at younger ages have a more difficult time regulating their emotions, a study shows.
The article in the Infant Behavior and Development journal shows television exposure in young children, between about 1 and 3 1/2 years old, is associated with attention problems, self-regulation, emotional reactivity, and aggression.
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According to the authors, reactivity refers to the intensity with which humans respond to the world, like differing levels of excitement, fear, happiness, and other senses like sight and hearing. As humans mature, so does the ability to regulate that intensity, which contributes to emotional expression, where attention is focused, and how we engage with others.
“Early childhood is a foundational period for the development of self-regulation, and television exposure is thought to disrupt related processes,” researchers wrote, adding that “soothability” and attention problems were the most commonly affected regulatory functions for children who watch more television.
However, exposure to television has also been linked to delays in language development, social problems, lower inhibition, and executive functions like problem solving, planning, and self-awareness.
Television and other media exposure are nearly inevitable in the United States, with 99% of households having a television. The study also indicates that watching television has become the most common childhood activity in many countries, including the U.S.
In addition to the increased exposure to television, digital media in all forms have also brought a market targeted directly at children, from shows and movies to video games and social media.
Screen time for children ages 2 to 4 years old is over two hours per day, which is above the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that children under 2 avoid screen time altogether and children between 2 and 5 should not view more than one hour of “high-quality programming” per day.
The quality of the programming, such as educational content, does differ among cultures and produces different results regarding emotional regulation.
One such example used by authors is that regulation problems were less strongly associated with television exposure among Spanish toddlers than Dutch ones. While the study did not review the causes of the different associations, the authors suggest one part of the explanation is that Spanish toddlers spend time watching television with their families as an element of family time, as opposed to being an “electronic babysitter.”
The kinds of content consumed by children can also have an impact. Recently, the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok was shown to have radically different content for Chinese children compared to American children.
In China, children might see other young people successfully completing science experiments and be exposed to patriotic and educational content. Chinese children also use a different version of the app not available to the rest of the world, and their use has a limited amount of minutes per day.
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As the study indicates, screen exposure to educational content has been shown in several studies to increase early learning skills, social skills, and general knowledge.
In the U.S., by contrast, children use a version of TikTok with a predictive algorithm that is addictive and designed to induce hits of dopamine to keep a child infatuated with reliably less-constructive material like sometimes dangerous or unhealthy content.
