JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Early years of childhood form the basis of intelligence, personality, social behavior, and capacity to learn and nurture oneself as an adult. It is increasingly recognized that early and longer exposure to screens has adverse effects on the development of children. This research was significant in finding out the effects of screen time on behavior of preschoolers, which could provide scientific grounds to the control of digital screen time.

Objective:

To determine the effect of electronic exposure on behavior, emotional development sleep quality of preschoolers and determine average number of hours preschoolers, spend with electronic devices in Islamabad.

Methods:

A cross sectional survey was conducted on a sample of 200 preschool children ages 3-5 years. They were selected from 4 private preschools of Islamabad through multistage random sampling. Socio demographic characteristics, screen time and behavior of the children were acquired by parental questionnaires, SCREEN-Q questionnaire and CBCL/1.5-5 check list respectively. Children were grouped based on daily screen time of ≤60 min or >60min.

Results:

Study results indicate that increased screen time was statistically significant with child’s age, education level and employment status of mothers. It was observed that preschoolers with screen time of > 60 min tend to suffer more from withdrawn syndrome (11.94±3.91, p = 0.014), sleep problems (10.97±3.20, p = 0.010) and Autism spectrum problems (17.66±5.89, p = 0.047) as compared to preschoolers with screen time ≤60min. Strongest predictor of the outcome variable was found to be mothers education level (ß = 21.53).

Conclusions:

Study findings revealed that excessive screen time has a deleterious effect and is associated with behavioral problems of preschoolers.