Parents have been in a bind since the “tablet craze” of the early 2010s. Tablets are cheap and well worth the money spent. The latest Amazon Fire Kids tablet costs just $55 and comes packed with features: calmer flights, quieter car trips, and a birthday gift that’s sure to please. Calculate the extra time the tablet can be used to wash dishes or pay bills, and it looks like a good deal.
This helps explain why we found – 2025 Survey A survey of more than 24,000 parents shows that nearly half of U.S. three-year-olds use a tablet, iPad or Kindle, many of which have few or no restrictions on use.
But parents know that tablets have another, less obvious price tag. Endless debates about content limits and screen time rules have become the norm. Not to mention the guilt (and judgment) many parents feel after making a purchase. But amid all these challenges, the question that matters most to every parent is: What impact will this device have on my child?
This concern is not unfounded. Research shows that exposure to tablets is associated with addictive behavior, limited attention spanand Poor emotional control ability. Negative impact of screen time on kids leads American Academy of Pediatrics recommend Electronic devices are prohibited before 18 months of age and children aged 2 to 5 years should not use (high quality) electronic devices for more than 1 hour per day.
Do American families adopt these standards? Unfortunately, not that much. Based on data from the 2024 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), we found that most U.S. children exceed these recommended time limits. In fact, more than half of parents or caregivers of children aged three to five report that their children use two or more hours of screen time per day during the workday, well above the recommended maximum of one hour.
What does this mean for children? We explored the association between screen time and language development in three-year-old children using a sample of 16,045 children at NSCH from 2020 to 2024. In particular, we looked at the proportion of three-year-olds who could speak in three-word sentences, ask who, what, when and where questions and tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. We examined each outcome based on the number of hours parents said their children used screens outside of school hours on weekdays. Screen usage includes time spent in front of the TV, computer or mobile phone, playing video games, browsing the Internet or using social media.
Higher screen time was significantly associated with poorer outcomes in these three abilities. 95% of three-year-olds who saw less than one hour of screen time per day were able to ask questions, while only 82% of three-year-olds who saw more than four hours of screen time per day reached this milestone. In other words, three-year-olds who used excessive screen time were 3.5 times more likely to miss this developmental milestone than three-year-olds who used the least amount of screen time.
More striking, however, is the difference in storytelling ability. 83% of children who watched screen time for less than 1 hour were able to tell stories, while only 56% of children who watched screen time for more than 4 hours were able to tell stories. In fact, we found that for every additional hour of screen time, the proportion of people able to tell stories dropped by five percentage points.
These declines are quite steep. It’s worth asking: Is screen time the root of these differences, or is there another culprit?
After controlling for social and demographic factors such as child race, gender, family structure, family income and parental education, screen time remained a strong predictor of language development for each child. We found that three or more hours of screen time per day was significantly associated with a reduced ability to form three-word sentences or ask questions. One or more hours of screen time per day was significantly associated with lower storytelling rates. Across the three results, socioeconomic factors explained about a quarter of the relationship between screen time and language development.
The relationship between screen time and delayed speech development holds across different populations. Furthermore, it holds true when we consider parental involvement (measured by how often parents read to their children). We found that more than three hours of screen time per day was as predictive of lower storytelling skills as reading less than four days per week.
Of our three variables, failure to tell stories was most strongly associated with longer screen time. This may be partly due to the fact that storytelling is a more advanced skill (the CDC lists storytelling as a more advanced skill) expected milestones to 5 years old), and storytelling requires imagination, which may be Passivated By extending passive screen time.
Because these data are cross-sectional, we cannot prove that longer screen time causes delays in speech development. growing body Research Linking more screen time to poorer cognitive and language development. The extent to which this relationship is causal remains unclear.
It’s worth noting that not all screen time is the same. Educational screen time compared to violent media connect Although screen exposure was still associated with lower overall executive function, young children had higher executive function. watch together Viewing with a parent appears to have a protective effect than viewing alone. Anyway, young children study It’s best through face-to-face interaction rather than a screen.
However, not all families have this luxury. We found that children who lived with a single parent were more than twice as likely to have more than four hours of screen time a day as those who grew up with married parents. Additionally, three-year-olds from working-class families (neither parent with a college degree) are 86% more likely to use screens for at least four hours a day than children with college-educated parents. Clearly, digital disconnections are not evenly distributed. Avoiding screens in favor of more constructive activities requires free time that many single parents and working-class families don’t have. Those who find themselves stuck, living paycheck to paycheck, may be more likely to rely on screens as a last resort.
This difference in screen time provides Further reasons Why parents need support with technology. This includes modeling Strategy Limit screen time at home with law Give parents more control over their children’s technology use and support family environment This enables limited technology use. Screens may be here to stay, but it’s up to parents to decide their place during their children’s early years.
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This content is republished with permission Family Institute. The original article “More screen time, less storytelling” can be found here.
Isabella Deeney is a researcher in the IFS Marriage Project. Grant Bailey is a researcher at the Institute for Family Studies and deputy director of The Marriage Project.