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Screen time robs average toddler of hearing 1,000 words spoken by adult a day
- sp332 3y agoBut these videos talk constantly. How could watching videos lead to hearing fewer words?
- defrost 3y agoTalking with adults is highly engaging and interactive for children. The same words and phrases get repeated and iterated over in varying orders and stresses in association with immediate touchable physical objects and executable actions. A week of that would test higher for word|association retention than would a week of watching video with { words, words, words } streaming by non stop. Yes, I do understand that there are videos and shows that are specifically designed to engage and teach young viewers: Playschool, Sesame Street etc .. but these require far more craft than goes into the vast sea of near AI generated pap that streams these days.
- sturz 3y agoThey mention that they didn't test for it, but I'd wager that the parents use of devices results in them speaking to the children less.
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y agoNot an expert, but I have the sense that some times toddlers do things just so they can interact with adults. Knowing that I get the sense that they might learn more from an actual person than from a screen everything else being equal.
- esarbe 3y agoIf you interact with babies, you'll notice that they are looking at you with an astonished intensity. That's because every neuron in their brain is trying to understand "What is going on!?" Humans are copy-machines. We copy each other. Toddlers and infants especially so. They don't learn by just hearing voices, they need to see how these sounds are made by a real human being with a real voice-box and real lips and real tongue, in which context they are used. Have you ever noticed gesturing while talking to someone on the phone? That's because we constantly try to enrich the words we are making with more context. All that is missing if toddlers are just looking at a screen. It's devastating for learning.
- Meninoyo 3y agoStudies show that toddlers can't learn from video.
- dappermanneke 3y agooh really
- klyrs 3y agoA quick search surfaced this study: https://hechingerreport.org/why-your-toddler-cant-learn-from-a-screen/ https://hechingerreport.org/why-your-toddler-cant-learn-from... GP said studies, plural. I cannot confirm that. But the linked study is consistent with what I observed in my child when he was a toddler.
- esarbe 3y agoYes, really. There's plenty of studies that show that.
- dappermanneke 3y agoguess toddlers are dumber than babies then https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/01/singing-to-babies-is-vital-to-help-them-understand-language-say-scientists https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/01/singing-to-b...
- esarbe 3y agoThe comment you made is obstinate and vapid. It does not refute my point and does not even address it. The article you posted has nothing to do whatsoever with the topic at hand. Neither does it discuss toddlers, nor does it discuss the influence of screen time. If you don't have anything useful to contribute, please be silent. This is not Reddit. Please do your own research next time. > The review indicated that an increase in the amount of screen time and an early age of onset of viewing have negative effects on language development, with older age of onset of viewing showing some benefits. Video characteristics, content and co-viewing also influences language development. This study demonstrates that the negative influences of screen time appear to outweigh the positive influences. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8905397/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8905397/
- drewcoo 3y agoGood point. I wonder if the problem is children's programming.
- darkwater 3y agoThey learn to hear (and understand) but they are not exercising speaking back, which is also important. Also, the usual pattern of "parents shoving smartphone into kids eyes to keep them busy" is with very low volume, because parents don't want to hear the frickin' video sounds.
- oven9342 3y agoThis dilemma has been named “video deficit”, the reason why children are unable to find the puppet whose location has been shown to them in a video https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0187.xml https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-97...
- whywhywhywhy 3y agoIs all vocabulary equal? After hearing American kids started talking with British mannerisms during the pandemic from watching too much Peppa Pig why would you risk your kid learning English from "Jonny Jonny Yes Papa" or "Finger Family" broken English slop videos
- siggi_pop 3y ago[dead]
- robsh 3y agoThere’s enormous variation in the rate at which children learn language and speak, particularly in the age range being studied. It’s not a race. Nobody is robbing kids of spoken words, as if they are entitled to them. Some people maybe don’t talk very much. Some parents are always traveling for work. Some kids grow up running around barefoot in a village. No big deal.
- vsuperpower2020 3y agoThis is another bizarre take. Yes, children are entitled to adult attention because it's mandatory for healthy development. This is also not a race between different kids, but figuring out how different circumstances would affect the same child. It's kind of wild to me that I have to even explain this to an adult.
- marcusverus 3y ago> Nobody is robbing kids of spoken words, as if they are entitled to them. Please don't reproduce.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- matt3D 3y agoMy 3 year old doesn't have any screen time, and adults don't use their phones in front of him. He plays happily by himself, and is always asking questions. People always compliment him on being well behaved, kind and very articulate. It seems almost taboo to suggest it might be be something to do with the lack of screen time, but I can't help but think it plays a large role. I see how hard I struggle to deal with boredom and refrain from using my phone and I never want to inflict that onto a child.
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y agoVery similar here. What will you do regarding schools, have you thought about that? Normally I'm not a control freak, but I worry that our hard work protecting him from the negative effects of screen addiction will quickly be destroyed if he's put into an environment where every other kid has a phone and is addicted to it.
- Meninoyo 3y agoWhy? It's the phone of other kids, they will not give their phones away
- StefanBatory 3y agoIt's not that - but it's being left out. If all of them will use phones and chat via them, not having one will be social isolation.
- ragestorm 3y agoWe are planning an apple watch at first. Can do both of those.
- StefanBatory 3y agoSeems like fair compromise. Truth be told I realise that this is a case where whatever you do, there will be consequences. I myself I don't really know how I'd approach that.
- akasakahakada 3y agoMy garbage parents won't let me watch TV when I was small. Not even educational TV for primary schools children teach stuff like difference between germs and virus. But their low educational background by all mean definitely not offering more to me. They said books are waste of money and they tear apart comic books that I bought using my little saving in front of my eyes. Only thing I can do is doing nothing just siting at home all day. After I made money from partime job and bought myself books, I never talked to them. Remember that received an invitation to participate IQ test when I was in 3rd grade, gave the letter to my garbage parent and then never heard anything back. Class teacher may have noticed that there is a weird kid in the class and wanted to do something. But sorry miss you can't help me. Babies should be public property and let gov handle them when parents do not meet the intelligence criteria. Just to say that maybe elsagate videos worth more than some human adults.
- neuronerdgirl 3y agoI truly have no idea what you are advocating for here.
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago> Babies should be public property and let gov handle them when parents do not meet the intelligence criteria. Maybe actually read what he wrote.
- felsokning 3y ago>Babies should be public property and let gov handle them when parents do not meet the intelligence criteria. The lead was buried but it was there. While I - somewhat - agree with their notion/premise, it only works in governments with a modicum of socialism implemented. I had the inverse experience from the original commenter: I was promised a test to earn the equivalent credit in school (and advance) but, after waiting and gentling prodding for over half a year, nothing came to fruition. I gave up. If no one else cared, why should I? Depending on a mostly apathetic system can be as bad as apathetic parents - from first-hand experience. I don't presume to have a solution, to be sure, but bad parents and/or bad systems aren't easily overcome.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoImportant to note that the study[1] doesn't say what percentage of adult conversation this is, and doesn't analyse the effect on children's language skills. I think we already knew that "When you're watching a tablet you're not talking to people." - what we're lacking here is any kind of useful detail. Is 1,000 words 5% of what they might hear in a day? 50%? Seems important to know. Does an hour of screen time reduce vocabulary by 5%? 50%? Increase it by 50%? Study doesn't tell us. [1]https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2815514?guestAccessKey=af1b82f5-2ff4-4cc9-a88c-2720ef541470&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=030424 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
- Paul-Craft 3y agoAccording to https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more-words-to-your-preschooler-daily/ https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more... the range is between 6000 and 21000 words per day, with more being better, and higher numbers being correlated with higher socioeconomic status. I suspect that doesn't tell the whole story you seem to be getting at, though. My guess is that people who will just hand a toddler a tablet to keep them entertained are probably those who would be at the lower end of that range anyway. The effects of a less linguistically rich environment on a child's language development are cumulative as well. Just saying "oh, 1000 words is 5-15% fewer words per day" seems to downplay the issue too much.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoSo 1,000 words from 6,000 is a huge amount, and you can definitely see how that would have a major impact. 1,000 out of 21,000 I'd be a lot less worried about. I guess the message here is "Talk to your kids lots, when you have the energy to do so. That way they can spend their downtime however they fancy."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iraldir 3y agoAs always with that sort of conversation, I don't think "screen" is a valid category of interaction. Drawing on photoshop, watching a documentary on whales, playing bejeweled or using TikTok are very different activities that impact the brain differently. My daughter is still young (2.5 years old), but I know that I'll let her play video games when she wants as long as it's as part of other activities in the day and that the games are ones that develop either her logic, creativity or motor skills. Similarly, watching a quality show like bluey, or watching a full movie end to finish like Totoro in Japanese are watching activities I support, whereas watching some crap cartoon made to sell toys is not.
- mordae 3y agoI feel that the previous generation of MLP with Twilight Sparkle was actually pretty good. Despite being made by a company who wanted to sell toys. Most cringe episodes are the first and last two of the season, but the slice of life in the middle are more often than not golden. But yeah, creating a curated library and not leaving it to chance would probably be a good idea.
- iraldir 3y agoYeah for sure, MLP friendship is magic is there in the list of high quality show. It's unavoidable that toys are sold on popular francises, I just don't want show that are obviously just 20 minutes long advertisements with little substance.
- bmacho 3y agoThere are not many cartoons made to sell toys that I know of. There is MLP, and .. Star Wars maybe? And MLP is indeed a quite good show, fans ranging from Miley Cyrus to Gabe Newell. Also I don't know how is it considered bad if characters are lovable (MLP has 50+ different, but lovable characters by design), or that if objects around her (clothes, mugs, toys, other merch) make her feel good?
- bawolff 3y agoGI joe? Various barbie cartoons? Transformers? There are a ton of such cartoons, at least in the 80s and 90s.
- techwiz137 3y agoMy 8-9 year old niece can't speak because of this. Our language has gendered nouns and she can't differentiate between them. She would say Mister to a woman or Mrs to a guy. Or call a guy a she, but this isn't just the only problem, but the conjugations as well. The problem of course lay with the parents. Not to mention they let her use a regular YT account, well her fathers to be exact and I found out my niece had bookmarked 18+ videos on YT...which I promptly deleted and installed YT kids only for her father to revert to regular YT...on which I then activated child mode or whatever it is.
- huhWell 3y agoMy 8 and 10 year old are on normal YouTube a lot and screen in general and they’re excelling in elementary school. But before school ages I socialized with them constantly. Built Legos, showed them SnapCircuits, read books, danced to music and used basic instruments, helped them with basic cooking like measure of ingredients. It has nothing to do with screen and YouTube and everything to do with hands on practice across contexts. Non-verbal, inept kids who did not get hands on mentorship have existed forever. There are more ignorant, inept parents in the world than geniuses. In the US only 14% of the public has more than a bachelors while polls suggest public believes it’s closer to 45%-50% Like much of the world the majority in the US just aren’t that intelligent.
- Tarq0n 3y agoYou're not going to get anywhere trying to apply technical solutions to a social problem. Maybe see if the parents would be willing to get a cheap device just for your niece so they don't have to share?
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y agowhy are you trying to override her fathers wishes on a device he owns? and don't tell me it's for the good of the child, if you really and truly believed that you'd call CPS. This feels like a 1-sided story from the perspective of a karen.
- xnx 3y agoI'd be surprised if it were more than a few years before we got something like an "ai"-powered Tickle Me Elmo. The safety/alignment factor would obviously be extremely important, but there would be real benefit to a whole class of children and parents in having a patient and attentive conversation partner.
- al_borland 3y agoIt would be odd if the child had this and developed the accent of the AI, rather than of the parents.
- al_borland 3y agoThis article wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. There always seems to be a focus on the screen time children, and this seemed no different. From the title, I assumed this was going to be about the screen time of the adults raising those children. When adults are scrolling on their phone, they generally aren’t talking or interacting with the children around them, which must drastically reduce the number of words a child hears.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoAnd if you're a parent and you're going to be on a screen, come out when the children want you. It's so easy to come out enough to say "uh huh", but they need you, not just a small fragment of your attention.
- al_borland 3y agoAnd that need is not just when they say something. Watch a kid play and they are constantly looking up at the adults in the room to see if they're paying attention and interested in what they're doing. Being lost in a phone isn't great feedback when the kids look up.
- more_corn 3y agoHow many words are spoken onscreen? I was visiting while my friend’s kid learned to talk. The kid watched Toy Story’s Cars on repeat. I watched him day-by-day adding more and more complex turns of phrase directly copied from the film. Did that “Rob him” no it taught him to speak.