The Effect of Screen Time on Children's Cognitive, Emotional, Social and Physical Developmen

Abstract

Excessive screen time use has become a major concern in the early stages of development among children. This review writing emphasizes on different realm of children’s development, such as physical and non-physical development over the period of five years(2019-2025). Deep analysis indicates high level of screen time especially passive viewing of noneducational content is linked to delay in language acquisition, executive function including attention, and academic skills, as well as increased behavioral problems and poorer social skills due to little to no interaction with humans while supervised viewing within recommended watch time improve short term memory and pose less negative impact. Also, Physical health correlates of heavy screen use include sedentary behavior contributing to higher obesity risk and sleep disruption, among other issues. In essence, the developmental consequences of screen time are complex and moderated by factors like content type, context of use (e.g. caregiver engagement), the child’s age and disposition, and family socioeconomic status thus the findings suggest that screen exposure should be conceptualized according to content, interaction patterns, and developmental stage rather than duration alone. The gap in the literature suggests more longitudinal research with higher sample size to establish causal relationship and reset recommendation hours of screen use. To sum up, the current findings support limiting screen use for children under 5 and highly scrutinize content and use of screen above age 5 by caregiver to benefit in this digital age.