Screen use has become a prevalent aspect of early childhood, with increasing numbers of infants and toddlers engaging with digital devices.
While moderate and high-quality screen use may have some benefits, excessive exposure has been linked to negative outcomes such as reduced sleep, delayed language development, and poorer social-emotional skills.
Given these potential concerns, it is crucial to examine the factors that contribute to screen use patterns in early childhood, including underexamined parental factors.
Factors shown to play a significant role in early childhood screen exposure include:
- Parenting style, with permissive and authoritative parenting styles associated with increased screen exposure.
- Mother's experiencing higher stress in personal and family situations tend to permit greater mobile media use by their children.
- Children who experience social-emotional difficulties or delays are found to have higher exposure to mobile technologies or television.
Despite the established link between parental stress and children's media consumption, little research has examined the influence of parental sense of competence on screen use patterns, particularly with respect to device type as well as screen time duration.
Closely aligned with the Screen ORIGINS sub-project, this sub-project aims to contribute to the growing body of research by investigating the parental predictors of child screen use in early childhood.
Specifically, the study will assess whether parental sense of competence predicts child screen use in terms of device type and screen time duration at ages one and two.
It will also explore the role of parental support, mental health, and postnatal depression as covariates. Given prior evidence linking parenting stress and maternal mental health to higher screen exposure, it is expected that lower parental confidence will be associated with greater child screen use.
By identifying key parental influences on early screen exposure, this research has the potential to inform interventions that promote healthier screen use practices in young children.
Investigators
- Dr Zenobia Talati, ORIGINS Research Fellow, The Kids Research Institute Australia
- Dr Juliana Zabatiero, Curtin University
- Dr Amber Beynon, Curtin University