Chandigarh: Prevalence of screen time in children in the age group of two to five years as high as 59.5%, with these children have slow physical activity and watch the most television, especially for cartoons.
This is the findings of PGI research supported by ICMR.
Screen time is significantly associated with children at the child care center and high caregivers (parents or relatives) for that.
400 children were chosen for this study.
After the 2011 census, there were 15,000 children to six years in the city.
This study was recently published in the “Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics” by Drs Nimran Kaur, Madhu Gupta, Prahbhjot Malhi, and Sandeep Grover.
“For children aged two and five years, the screen time must be one hour or less.
More than that can damage sleep patterns and affect learning skills.
We will work on these patterns separately,” said Prof.
Madhu Gupta, the research writer corresponding.
He said, “It is often easy for parents to hand over the cellphone to manage children.
We are trying to provide a solution to the parents.” As many as 58.5% of children have excessive screen time during working days compared to 56, 8% of those who are exposed to the screen during the weekend.
Every day an average of 1.5 hours is spent on the screen by children.
TV is the most popular electronic device, followed by smartphones and handheld video games, the study said.
Most children especially watch non-content content, including cartoons (77%), followed by random music videos (61%), games (40%), or learning activities (16%) there are 77.8% of the moderate workers Send their children to all kinds of child care centers in the city.
“Mothers who work often need to spend time after working hours do other household tasks; therefore, they can allow their children to watch TV not set or use a telephone without supervision,” said research.
Formal childcare facilities include preschool, creche, or anganwadi center and informal day care facilities including other family homes.
Among those who sent their children to serving facilities a day, 48.3% of families sent their children to preschool and 14.5% for Anganwadis.
The prevalence of excessive screen times higher among those aged four to five years belonging to the upper social-economic class caregiver has a screen time of more than two hours per day and children attend formal or informal child care facilities.