The amount of time babies spend watching computer, TV and phone screens in their first year of life may be indirectly linked to lower cognitive skills later in life, according to a new study.
Babies who watched on average two hours of screen time per day performed worse later on, at age 9, on executive functions, according to the study, which was published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Executive functions, linked to long-term academic success, are defined by the study's researchers as "a collection of higher-order cognitive skills essential for self-regulation, learning, and academic achievement, as well as mental health."
The researchers studied more than 400 children.
"They did EEGs to test and study brain waves at about 18 months and then connected the dots between how much screen time they were seeing in infancy to how they performed on memory and attention tests around the age of 9," explained Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent, who was not involved with the study. 'What they found was that the babies who had the most screen time ... did the worst on attention and memory testing by age 9."
The study did not prove that screen time directly leads to lower cognitive functioning. Other factors, such as a family's income level, also seemed to be linked to lower cognitive functioning scores.
Nevertheless, the findings track with guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics that children under the age of 2 should not have any screen time....
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