ARKANSAS, USA — It's no secret screen time is a huge part of everyone's daily lives in this day in age. But how much is too much for children and where do we draw the line?
The Jama Pediatric Journal released a 2023 study with more than 7,000 mother-and-child pair participants. It concluded that a small percentage of one-year-olds who received one to four hours of screen time had developmental delays in communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, social, and personal skills by the time they were two to four years old.
But the Snowden family disagrees by stating that screen time has been extremely beneficial for their 18-month-old son, Thatcher.
"We've seen a, you know, a big difference compared to children his age when it comes to developmental skills, and I think a lot of that contributes to the educational videos that he does watch," says Farriss Snowden, Thatcher's father.
The Snowden's argue it's not the amount of screen time kids get, but the type of content they're absorbing that makes all the difference.
Nonie Snowden, Thatcher's mother, adds, "We use a lot of YouTube kids for those educational videos from Miss Rachel, or even Blue's Clues which is very interactive."
They say they don't just hand their son an iPad and walk away.
“We actually get in and interact ourselves and just kind of jump in, as we're in the video as well. And going through those different learning skills such as colors and numbers and animal sounds and things like that," says Nonie Snowden.
While the study found it was a small percentage of kids who faced the developmental delays associated with screen time, experts say they see it on a larger scale in day-to-day life.
“What I see is children having difficulty holding a conversation, and conversation is what teaches us language in the early years. And so, not being able to focus attention, being able to face somebody, make eye contact, staying on topic, those kinds of things to tell a story," says speech language pathologist at Washington Elementary, Laura Osborne.
She says she's also noticed her student's attention span dwindle over the years.
"We’re competing with all of the action and activity on a screen that comes with three-second scene changes. And I don't know a teacher anywhere that can provide novel stimuli every three seconds in a classroom," Osborne said.
So how can those issues be addressed? Doctor Upton Siddons, a primary care physician and Family Doctor at Baptist Health in Greenwood says it’s all about a healthy media diet to maintain physical and mental wellness.
Dr. Siddon states, "I think there are plenty of great ways in which screen time and media and all these things can expose us to educational things, to things that are fun and great as a family.”
"But we also need to recognize there are downsides of that as well. And make sure that as parents, I think we're being very responsible as far as being aware of what our children are doing online, what they're looking at being engaged with," he added shortly after.
Similar to what the Snowdens are doing, staying involved in their son’s media consumption.
If you'd like to take a look at the study, click here.
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