Kids’ average daily screen use increased by more than an hour and twenty minutes during pandemic: analysis – CTV
Nov. 7, 2022
Average daily screen use by children during the COVID-19 pandemic increased by more than an hour and twenty minutes, according to an analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics on Monday.
Researchers looked at screen time and the types of devices used between January 1, 2020, and March 5, 2022, by extracting data from 46 studies on nearly 30,000 kids in multiple countries.
The children in the studies ranged from ages 3 to 18, with the average age of 9.
Kids’ average daily screen use increased by 1.5 times during the pandemic — from a baseline of 162 minutes a day before the pandemic to 246 minutes during the pandemic, according to the analysis.
“These findings should be considered along with another meta-analysis suggesting a 32% decrease in children’s engagement in moderate to vigorous physical activity during the pandemic,” the researchers wrote. “Policy-relevant pandemic recovery planning and resource allocation should therefore consider how to help children, adolescents, and families to ‘sit less and play more’ to meet the 24-hour movement guidelines.”
