Screen time and toddler anger
This week, a study1 by Caroline Fitzpatrick and her team at the Université de Sherbrooke was published, showing a significant correlation between aggression and tablet use. The results of this study show that children who used the tablet more at the age of 3.5 showed more frustration and anger at the age of 4.5. But in return, children who showed more frustration and anger at 4.5 years of age showed an increase in tablet use by age 5.5! A snowball effect! More screen time is associated with more anger, more anger is then associated with more screen time!
Correlation is not cause and effect.
The first nuance here is that correlation does not mean cause and effect. We're saying here that there's a reciprocal link between electronic tablets and anger, but we can't say that one causes the other. We could, for example, think of a third factor that explains the first two. For example, children with ADHD are both much more impulsive and uninhibited than their peers in expressing their anger, but are also more likely to develop an addiction to screens and video games. We also know that children from lower socio-economic backgrounds have both more externalized problems (such as tantrums) and more exposure to screens and fewer opportunities to stimulate their cognitive development than children from middle- to affluent socio-economic backgrounds. ADHD and socio-economic level are therefore two factors (among others) that could be the hidden cause behind the screen-anger link.
"Screen time vs. Green time
Nevertheless, the 0-5 age group is an absolutely critical period in the development of many cognitive functions, and in the acquisition of new skills. During this period, toddlers seem particularly vulnerable to overexposure to screens. It's a period of intense development of new connections in the brain, connections that enable a whole range of learning processes, including motor skills and speech. A literature review2from 2020 reports findings suggesting that in children aged 5 and under, prolonged exposure to screens may be associated with poorer cognitive development, poorer effort persistence, poorer language and communication development, more behavioral problems, poorer self-control, as well as poorer social skills.
The same literature review provides a very interesting comparison between "Screen time" and "Green time", i.e. screen time vs. green time, or time spent in nature! It's this ratio that's been completely out of kilter in recent years, with an inordinate amount of time spent on screens in proportion to time spent in nature and parks. The authors also point out that time spent outdoors is a protective factor in children's development, even if they spend a lot of time on screens.
Another protective factor against end-of-screen-time tantrums is the child's use of real, tangible toys. Time spent playing with real toys leads children to be much more proactive in their play, and to generate imaginary scenarios with their toys. Screens impose an imaginary world on children, whereas toys force them to create their own. It's a huge difference! These scenarios created with toys stimulate cognitive development and learning, enabling the child to better manage his emotions, especially when he later experiences frustration because he has to put an end to screen time.
Out of a dream
River the eyes of a toddler on his tablet leads him to enter an imaginary world in which he can be completely submerged. Some children lose awareness of what's going on around them (in the real world), while they're on their screen. For the child who believes that Mickey Mouse and Cinderella are real, the world offered to them by the screen becomes just as real as the world they live in. Except that the universe created for toddlers and presented on screen is far more wonderful and fantastic than the real world.
So you'll understand that the moment when the child has to extricate himself from this fantasy world to return to the real world is a bit like the moment when we have to extricate ourselves from a pleasant dream to wake up and face reality on a Monday morning! You know that moment when you wish you could go back to the dream, the disappointment of realizing that it's not real, and the frustration of real life re-imposed on you? It's a bit like what children experience when they have to close their world of teddy bears and fantastic adventures to go and eat broccoli or have their hair washed with soap that stings their eyes! It's a rude awakening!
Developing social and emotional skills
In addition to learning to walk and talk, preschoolers must learn to interact with others in the real world. We're talking about the development of social and emotional skills, which could be described as "savoir-être", and which contribute to smooth and harmonious interpersonal relations, as well as a sense of well-being in situations of social interaction. CASEL4 describes five (5) social and emotional skills to be acquired by children:
- Self-awareness: The ability to recognize your emotions, thoughts and values, and their impact on your behavior.
- Self-management: The ability to control one's emotions, thoughts and behavior in different situations, to manage stress effectively, to control impulsivity and to motivate oneself.
- Awareness of others: The ability to put oneself in another's shoes and empathize, the ability to understand the social and ethical norms governing behavior.
- Relational skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy, harmonious relationships with different people and groups. The ability to communicate clearly, listen attentively, cooperate and resolve conflicts constructively.
- Responsible decision-making: The ability to make constructive choices about one's behavior and social interactions. The ability to make a realistic assessment of the consequences of one's actions on one's own well-being and that of others.
These skills are developed right up to adulthood, through interaction with other children, as well as with parents and other significant adults (grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, educators, camp counselors, sports coaches). The danger of screens is that they diminish interaction time with others, thereby reducing opportunities to learn and develop social and emotional skills. Children with poorer social and emotional skills are more vulnerable to uncontrolled and excessive reactions of frustration and anger.
Recommendations
With all this in mind, here are a few recommendations to apply at home to promote the harmonious development of your children in a world where screens are omnipresent!
- The Quebec government5 recommends the following guidelines for leisure screen time among young people (which does not include time spent on academic tasks):
- Under 2 years: No screen time
- 2 to 5 years: Less than an hour a day
- 6-12 years: Maximum of two hours per day, with parental supervision, favoring educational content. Use of screens in common areas rather than in the bedroom, for example.
- 13-19 years: No recommendation on screen time, but beware, overuse of screens can have negative effects on the teenager. My recommendation for this age group: Make sure the teenager maintains a balance between study time, sleep time, physical activity, direct social contact with friends, and screen time. If screen time invades any of the other spheres, it needs to be supervised and rebalanced.
- Preventing transitions: I'll take up my comparison between leaving the fantastic world offered to the child on a screen and waking up from a fantastic dream. What do we want to do when the alarm goes off and we're confronted with real life? "Oh no, just 5 more minutes!!!" and we "snooze"! We need that little moment of transition between dream and reality. Think about it when you have to tell your youngster that he has to close the electronic tablet! Tell him 5 minutes beforehand, so he can prepare himself. In fact, I suggest that you pause the game or program to tell them about the 5 minutes remaining. Pausing briefly takes the child out of the fantasy world in which he's immersed, and reminds him more concretely of the reality that will be back in 5 minutes.
- Time outdoors and especially in nature: Science tells us that time spent interacting with nature is a factor that counterbalances time spent on screens, and promotes better cognitive, social and emotional development in children. Find green spaces (parks, forests, streams) near you, and visit them with your kids!
- Physical activity: Science also shows that physical activity promotes neural connections for attention/concentration and better management of emotions (especially stress and anger). In addition to the sports you can think of, physical activity can include: going outside and making a snowman, taking a walk with the dog, jumping in the leaves in autumn, etc!
- Expose children to real, stimulating toys: As I mentioned above, science also tells us that time spent handling real, physical toys (and not virtual games on a screen), promotes a child's cognitive, social and emotional development.
- Exposing your child to social situations: There are more opportunities than you think to expose your little one to social and learning situations. Of course, you can enroll him in preschool, day camps or activities like soccer or gymnastics. But you can also take him to the grocery store to discover the products, take him to neighborhood parties, or invite friends or family over. All these situations expose the child to social interactions and help him learn the social and emotional skills described above.
- For more information and documentation, I invite you to consult the excellent documents produced on the subject by the Canadian Paediatric Society: https: //cps.ca/fr/tools-outils/les-medias-numeriques-et-le-temps-decran
References cited in this text :
- Fitzpatrick, C., Pan, P. M., Lemieux, A., Harvey, E., Rocha, F. A., & Garon-Carrier, G. (2024). Early-Childhood Tablet Use and Outbursts of Anger. JAMA pediatrics, e242511. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.2511
- Oswald, T. K., Rumbold, A. R., Kedzior, S. G. E., & Moore, V. M. (2020). Psychological impacts of "screen time" and "green time" for children and adolescents: A systematic scoping review. PloS one, 15(9), e0237725. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237725
- Gavrilova, M., & Veraksa, N. (2024). Not EF skills but play with real toys prevents screen time tantrums in children. Frontiers in psychology, 15, 1384424. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1384424
Text by:
Dr Benoît Hammarrenger, Ph.D.
Neuropsychologist, author, lecturer
CERC Director
