A lot of eyebrows were raised earlier this year, for
example, when the World Health Organization
(WHO) issued guidelines on physical activity and
sleep that urged against children under the age
of three watching TV or sitting playing games
on a tablet. The United Nations (UN) agency also
said that three and four-year-olds should not
exceed an hour of screen time each day. But as
reported by The Guardian, UK experts disputed
this advice on the grounds of it being based on
poor evidence and failing to recognize that not
all screen time was actually bad for children.
Among them was health improvement officer
for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child
Health, Dr Max Davie, who challenged the
relevance and helpfulness of the guidance for
families raising children in cramped housing
where there was little outdoor space to play.
“Without the right support in place,” he stated,
“striving for the perfect could become the
enemy of the good.”
Davie added that the WHO’s suggested screen-
time limits “do not seem proportionate to the
potential harm. Our research has shown that
currently there is not enough strong evidence
to support the setting of screen-time limits, and
that screen use should be considered alongside
a range of activities to assess its impact.”
AN OVERLY STRICT APPROACH MIGHT
EVEN BE DETRIMENTAL
Let’s focus, for a moment, on one of the reasons
parents most frequently cite for restricting
how much time their kids are allowed to look
at a screen: the hope that by imposing such
limits, their children will be able to focus better