Alexis Molineaux-Gibbons, SLP St. Peter's Health
August 17, 2026
Alexis Molineaux-Gibbons, SLP is a Speech Language Pathologist at St. Peter's Health.
Today's world is filled with screens. Very few homes don't contain a variety of smartphones, tablets, laptops, video game consoles and televisions.
Screen time is not inherently bad and can support education, creativity and social connection. However, when sleep, physical activity and face-to-face time with others are impacted by excessive use, children's health and development can suffer.
So, how does screen time impact development?
Psychological
Higher amounts of screen time are associated with lower self-esteem, more frequent and severe mental health issues, and addiction. As children's social lives have moved away from face-to-face interactions and moved more online, rates of anxiety, depression and self-harm have increased.
Language
Research indicates that toddlers who are exposed to more than one hour a day of screen time have poorer language development, both in terms of their understanding of language and their expressive language skills.
Executive Function
Executive function begins to develop between six and twelve months old and continues into our twenties, with full development by age twenty-five. Executive function is essentially the "adult" part of our brain that drives our working memory, goal setting, emotional management, and problem solving. It helps us follow rules, negotiate, self-regulate, plan, organize, multitask, make complex decisions, attend and provides us with the ability to change our response to challenges as needed (cognitive flexibility).
Research has shown that there is a direct correlation between excessive screen use and impaired executive function in children. Excessive screen time or internet usage has been found to negatively impact emotional regulation, behavior, attention, memory, and other aspects of executive function.
So, what do the experts say about screen time limits? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) makes the following recommendations for children:
- Birth to 18 months: avoid screen time except video chats with friends and family.
- 18-24 months: small amounts of high-quality educational programming viewed with an adult to help them understand what they are seeing/hearing.
- 2-5 years: one hour per day of high-quality educational content.
For children six and up, the AAP does not provide screen time limits. Still, it suggests that parents focus on setting healthy, consistent boundaries around content and context, and ensuring that face-to-face social interactions, physical exercise and sleep are not neglected. Evidence has emerged that restrictions focusing on content, co-watching with discussion, and balance between screen time and other activities are associated with better well-being than rules just focused on limiting screen time. They suggest that parents:
- Create screen-free times and spaces such as mealtimes, parent-child play times, and bedrooms. Model these restrictions by putting away their devices.
- Focus on what kids are doing online, and not just how long they are on screens.
- Create a family Media Plan (the AAP has a template on their website).
- Make sleep and physical activity a priority. Avoid all screens at least an hour before bed to limit blue light from disrupting sleep cycles.
- Avoid relying on screens as the only way to calm children down because it can impact their ability to learn how to regulate their emotions.
So, how do we evaluate the content of what our children are viewing, or determine if it is "high quality"? The AAP developed the "5 C’s Framework" to assist parents in determining the value of screen time content:
Child: take into account your child's personality and maturity.
Content: choose educational, high-quality, age-appropriate content over mindless scrolling.
Context: consider your child's purpose. Are they connecting with friends, using a screen for entertainment or education, or just "zoning out"?
Co-viewing: use screens as a shared family activity versus an independent one.
Crowding out: ensure that screens aren't replacing other activities such as playing outside, reading, doing homework, face-to-face interactions or chores.
By following these guidelines, parents can minimize the impact of screen time on their children's development, giving them more time for play, exercise, face-to-face interaction and sleep.