One in five three- and four-year-olds in the UK have their own mobile phone, according to Ofcom research, and the rapid rise of phone use by very young children has brought the issue into the foreground as a public health question.
However, researchers in this area are generally keen to shift the narrative away from the “harms of screen time”, saying the uses of phones can be so varied that this theme is inaccurate and unhelpful.
“Not all screen time is the same,” said Prof Tim Smith, a cognitive psychologist at Birkbeck, University of London. “If young children are being shown apps that help with word learning it can be developmentally beneficial. Fast-paced, more extreme, action-based entertainment that doesn’t require much from the child, they might be actually making it harder for the children to make sense of what they’re seeing.”
Establishing an evidence base for such harms and benefits presents a considerable challenge, though, and much of the research is suggestive rather than conclusive. In one of the few longitudinal studies of toddlers, Smith and colleagues showed that infants with high touchscreen use at 12 months scored worse on certain working memory and attention control measures at the age of three. The findings could indicate a negative effect on brain development. Another possible interpretation is that more restless toddlers – perhaps those predisposed to get lower scores on attention tasks – were more likely to be given a device by parents to keep them calm.
Ideally, Smith said, families in studies would be randomly assigned to no screen time, but this would be difficult to achieve in the real world. “The science has to move slowly to be done well, but the societal change that’s going on is happening rapidly,” he said. “We’re trying to keep up.”
Scientists say the context in which children are using apps and viewing content is a crucial factor and some expressed concern, or even bafflement, at why so many three- and four-year-olds have their own phones.
“The report states that they were mainly using them to watch videos, so I don’t see why this can’t be done through a family television or communal computer,” said Prof Pete Etchells, of Bath Spa University. “While access to screens isn’t a concern in and of itself, my worry here would be the risk of uncurated access – children, and especially young children, need clear support structures in place to help them to understand and navigate their digital world.
“If they have potentially unregulated access to their own devices, this opens up the potential for hidden tech use, and that’s where the risk of accessing inappropriate content increases,” he said.
Others point out that young children tend to get phones as hand-me-downs, suggesting the majority of three- and four-year-olds are likely to have old phones with the sim card removed, and with just a few apps available.
Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, said: “Ofcom doesn’t report how many have a contract or capacity to make calls, but I am guessing it’s close to zero. So it will most likely be a convenient way to watch funny videos.”
According to Livingstone, “screen time” is often used as an unhelpful proxy for other problems, such as the lack of access to other activities. “Too much time on a phone matters mainly if it is at the cost of parent-child interaction – the most important thing of all – along with children getting sufficient sleep and physical exercise,” she said. “If children are doing homework, watching an educational app, chatting with a grandparent, dancing in front of a music video, playing a game with a sibling, there is no evidence that any of this is a problem, and some evidence that it’s a benefit.”
Digital activities that are age-inappropriate, or designed to be addictive, such as games with loot boxes, are concerns, but there is not much evidence on this relating to preschool children. “We can only follow the precautionary principle and advise parents to be cautious, to ask their children what they enjoy and why, and to keep an eye on any consequences, changing their practices as needed,” said Livingstone.
Max Davie, a consultant paediatrician based in London, said parents’ central consideration should be how to help their child’s development, rather than simply policing phone use. “Children need social interaction, communication, play, exercise and sleep,” he said. “Rather than a list of acceptable things or a time limit, think whether the smartphone use is helping those things or getting in the way.”
