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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1466541

Multidimensional Screen Exposure and Its Impact on Psychological Well-being in Toddlers

Provisionally accepted
Sha Luo Sha Luo 1Wenjie Guo Wenjie Guo 2Hao Chen Hao Chen 2Yidong Zhu Yidong Zhu 2*Guowei Zhu Guowei Zhu 1*Yingnan Jia Yingnan Jia 2*
  • 1 Xuhui Maternity and Child Health Care Center, Shanghai, China
  • 2 School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Previous studies have indicated a link between screen exposure and children's mental health, but with the emergence of new screen media and a rise in screen content, uncertainties have grown. Our aim was to investigate the impact of screen use on psychological issues in 2-to 3-year-old children, considering screen time and types of screen media and content.This cross-sectional study included participants from Shanghai, China, from February to July 2023. Screen use information were collected from children's caregivers via online questionnaire. Psychological difficulties of children was reported by parents using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire(SDQ).Among the interviewed children, 15.9% had an average daily screen time exceeding 1 hour. 52.1% of them have viewed inappropriate, non-child-directed screen content, 37.6% were mainly exposed to educational content, and 18.9% watched more fast-paced screen content than slow-paced content. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that the use of mobile phones (β= 1.16, 95% CI: 0.14, 2.18), virtual reality (VR) devices (β= 2.57, 95% CI: 0.62, 4.53) and computers for more than 30 minutes per day (β= 2.15, 95% CI: 0.99, 3.30) were related to higher SDQ difficulty scores. Watching more fast-paced ( β =1.58, 95% CI: 0.80, 2.35) and more noneducational screen content ( β = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.35, 1.66) were also associated with increased difficulty scores.The amount of time spent using computers, mobile phones and VR devices and the proportion of exposure to noneducational content and fast-paced content were significantly associated with psychological problems among 2-to 3-year-old children.

    Keywords: Screen time (ST), Screen content, Children's mental health, Psychosocial problem, Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

    Received: 18 Jul 2024; Accepted: 26 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Luo, Guo, Chen, Zhu, Zhu and Jia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Yidong Zhu, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
    Guowei Zhu, Xuhui Maternity and Child Health Care Center, Shanghai, China
    Yingnan Jia, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

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