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Screen Time More Than Doubled for Babies Between 1997 and 2014: Study

The vast majority of that time was spent watching television.

Children ages 0 to 2 spent more than twice as much time looking at screens in 2014 as they did in 1997, according to a new study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. In the late nineties, the study notes, children in that age range spent 1.32 hours each day staring at screens; by 2014, they spent 3.05 hours. The screen-heavy group was largely composed of boys and children from low-income families, and the vast majority of that screen time—86 percent—came from television. Axios notes, however, that the study stopped in 2014—right around the time the iPad became a popular children’s toy. “The real acceleration of decline in kids TV started in 2013/2014 so I think what you’re seeing here is the passing of peak kids TV,” said one children’s tech CEO. Research has shown that this screen fixation can have consequences: As The Daily Beast previously reported, concerns are quickly growing among parents, researchers, and even Apple investors about smartphone use and addiction in adolescents.

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