Preschoolers' engagement with screen content and associations with sleep and cognitive development

Abstract

Preschool children's exposure to screen media and associations with sleep, language, and cognition were investigated along with the time of day of screen exposure, content type, and whether use occurred with someone. Caregivers of Australian children, aged 2 years, 11 months to 5 years, 11 months, answered questions online about the durations children engaged with entertainment, relaxing/calming, and educational content. Fifty-nine percent of children engaged with relaxing/calming content and 86 % with educational, but all children engaged with entertainment content, which became the focus of the analyses. Average daily durations engaged with relaxing and educational content were 1 h each and 2 h for entertainment content. Longer time spent engaged with entertainment content was associated with shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality. The interaction between screen time and usage at night vs. daytime only was non-significant suggesting that the association with sleep duration was similar regardless of time of day of usage. Greater screen time also predicted lower communication and problem solving scores, and more attention difficulties. Engaging in screen content with someone else was associated with poorer problem solving skills, whereas engaging alone was associated with better problem solving. The findings here indicate that preschoolers largely engage in entertainment content and this has implications for their sleep even when screen engagement predominantly occurs during the day. Greater screen time also has implications for cognitive and language development raising questions about the time children spend on screens that could be spent on activities that better support development.