Too much screen time, too little horseplay for kids: study

PARIS: Only one in 20 kids in the United States meets guidelines on sleep, exercise and screen time, and nearly a third are outside recommendations for all three, according to a study published on Thursday.

On average, children aged eight to 11 spent 3.6 hours per day glued to a TV, mobile phone, tablet or computer screen, nearly double the suggested limit of two hours, researchers found.

Too little sleep and excess screen time were clearly linked to a drop off in cognitive skills, such as language ability, memory, and task completion, they reported in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

"We found that more than two hours of recreational screen time in children was associated with poorer cognitive development," said lead author Jeremy Walsh, a researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.

"Based on our findings, paediatricians, parents, educators and policymakers should promote limiting recreation screen time and prioritising healthy sleep routines during childhood and adolescence."

Walsh and his team looked at data -- based on detailed questionnaires -- for 4,520 children spread across 20 locations in the United States. They also tested the kids for six kinds of cognitive skills, adjusting the results for household income, puberty development and other factors that might affect performance.