Praneeta Mahajan
Hamilton, July 28, 2023
In the digital age, screens have become an integral part of our lives. From smartphones and tablets to computers and televisions, screens surround us everywhere.
As adults, we often find ourselves absorbed in the virtual world, and it is no different for children.
While technology brings numerous benefits and opportunities for learning and entertainment, the excessive use of screens can have detrimental effects on a child’s physical and mental development.
Regulations are urgently needed to protect children from harm in the unregulated online world, researchers at the University of Otago, Wellington said recently.
Screen time is defined as the time spent engaging with digital devices, be it watching videos, playing games, or using educational apps.
The problem has been brought into focus by a study of the after-school habits of 12-year-olds.
The research, “Watching the watchers: assessing the nature and extent of children’s screen time using wearable cameras” published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, found that children spend a third of their after-school time on screens, including more than half their time after 8 pm.
Senior Researcher Dr Moira Smith of the Department of Public Health said that this is considerably more than the current guidelines, which recommend less than two hours of screen time per day (outside school time) for school-aged children and adolescents.
The results are from the innovative Kids’Cam project, with the 108 children involved wearing cameras that captured images every seven seconds, offering a unique insight into their everyday lives in 2014 and 2015. Children were mostly playing games and watching programmes. For 10% of the time the children were using more than one screen.
Negative impacts on young minds
Screen use harms children’s health and well-being. “It is associated with obesity, poor mental well-being, poor sleep and mental functioning and lack of physical activity. It also affects children’s ability to concentrate and regulate their behaviour and emotions,” Dr Smith said.
Screen use is now a regular part of children’s everyday lives and is likely to have increased since the Kids’Cam data was collected. “Screen use rose rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic, and children in 2023 are frequently spending time online, particularly on smartphones.
According to the latest media use survey, YouTube and Netflix are the most popular websites for watching programmes, with one in three children under 14 using social media, most commonly TikTok, which is rated R13.”
Dr Smith said that children are being exposed to vaping, alcohol, gambling and junk food advertisements and experiencing sexism, racism and bullying while online.
“Cyberbullying is particularly high among children in Aotearoa, with one in four parents reporting their child has been subjected to bullying while online,” she said.
Cameras worn by children participating in the Kids’Cam project captured an image every seven seconds, offering insight into children’s screen use in their everyday lives.
Regulations required
Dr Smith said that the existing legislation is outdated and fails to adequately deal with the online world to which children are being exposed.
“While screen use has many benefits, children need to be protected from harm in this largely unregulated space.”
She said that the government is to be applauded for proposing more regulation of social media in its recent consultation document from the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), which notes concern about children accessing inappropriate content while online.
The Otago researchers are currently studying the online worlds of children in New Zealand using screen capture technology, with the results expected to be published soon.
Praneeta Mahajan is an Indian Newslink reporter based in Hamilton.
