Screens beyond good and evil: nuancing the evidence on children, screens and interaction

Excerpt

Children and screens are a topic of major public debate and today on the agenda of public policies worldwide. Since screen-based devices have become almost omnipresent in our everyday lives, this topic affects parents, educators and the ways children come in contact with media and screen-based devices. Thus, it is not unfounded that the question of what effects screens have on children’s health, learning, and development is of immense interest, but also a reason for worry about what effects they have on children growing up. The issue of screen use and screen time is not only a matter for family discussion but a topic for global health concerns and regulations [1]. These concern are making their way into national policies. For example, The Swedish Paediatric Society recently called for a strict no-screen policy for children under two [2]; consequently, the government is withdrawing computers from schools [3]. Simultaneously, research is amounting where there is converging multidisciplinary evidence from several fields studying children showing how the question requires nuanced answers, leading other advisory bodies, such as the WHO [1] and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) [4] to move from simple no-screen policies to more sensitive considerations of what children do on and with the screen-based technologies they interact with. …