Healthy Screen Use for 2-5 Year-Olds

[Dimitri Christakis]: So I want to talk about 2 to 5 years. That’s sort of that magical period where there really is, there really are, a lot of excellent shows that have been shown to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. Many of us grew up with some of those landmark programs, whether it was Sesame Street or The Electric Company. And there are lots more new ones now that really have a sound evidence base behind them. They do work. They can teach children letters and numbers. They can promote prosocial behavior. We’ve done studies that have shown just that. So being selective about the programs and finding high quality ones is a really good thing that you can do. But there too, there need to be limits because we frequently talk about a healthy media diet. And akin to a food diet, even healthy foods in excess have untoward consequences, right. So carrots are a healthy food. But if your child eats a bushel of carrots a day, they don’t have a balanced diet because they’re probably not eating the other things that they need to eat. And if your child watches too much, even high quality preschool programing, they’re not doing the other things they need to do to develop normally. They’re not engaging in enough physical play, imaginative play. They’re not socializing enough with other children and adults. So my recommendation is that they have no more than an hour of high quality screen time.