Just scanning the paper and there are other major limitations that didn’t make it into the summary. They don’t control for other activities that screens may sub

Just scanning the paper and there are other major limitations that didn’t make it into the summary. They don’t control for other activities that screens may substitute for such as active physical play, having books read to them, active exercise, etc all of which may be positively associated with white matter integrity, or may require a certain threshold of activity which isn’t being met for kids who spend too much time watching tv so there’s no time to do other helpful activities. Other studies show negative associations are much more strongly correlated at the high end of exposure, suggesting that substitution for other beneficial activities could be a bigger issue than the exposure itself. It also controls for family income and age but not cognitive scores prior to screen exposure. It could also be that kids starting with “less integrated” brains find more active tasks less engaging and end up watching more screens as a result. I don’t let my toddler spend much time on screens aside from FaceTime and the odd episode of Tik Tak[1] while we’re cutting her nails. These studies’ data are often presented as simplistic linear regressions suggesting that like lead, there is no safe exposure to screens, when it’s just as likely that a small exposure that doesn’t get in the way of a lot of other activities is helpful and helps kids feel comfortable and less confused in our modern screen-filled world. Anyway, I just needed to get that off my chest because I see too many families get overly stressed and paranoid by the AAP guidelines which are speculative at best. [1] Your toddler’s favourite Belgian animation show. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_yPvRyfdJlw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_yPvRyfdJlw