Study: Reducing screen use improves children’s mental health

Children are spending more time in front of electronic devices and screens instead of doing outdoor activities and interacting with their social surroundings. This raises many questions about the impact of this on their mental health and social skills.
Psychologists and mental health professionals have conducted a study on this issue.
Researchers have concluded that reducing the time children spend in front of screens to just three hours a week can significantly improve their mental health, according to the Medical Express website.
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Previous research has indicated that children who spend long periods of time in front of electronic devices, whether watching videos, interacting on social media, or playing video games, are at risk of mental health problems such as antisocial behavior and difficulties dealing with emotions.
These difficulties can become problematic, according to some experts in the field, when they are chronic.
Previous research in some countries has indicated that children use their electronic devices on average between 7 and 8 hours per day.
In the new study, the research team asked whether removing screens from children’s lives would improve their mental health, and if so, how long it would take to do so. To answer these questions, the researchers conducted a clinical trial involving 89 families with 181 children from 10 cities.
The experiment involved testing all children participating in the study using a questionnaire to find out more information about their social skills, general behavior, emotional stability, and overall mental health.
All children in 45 families were then asked to restrict their use of electronic devices to just three hours per week (not including school use), for two weeks, and monitors were installed in the homes of participating children to ensure compliance.
All children were then asked to fill out the same questionnaire again to see if there were any differences between the pre- and post-experiment periods.
The research team found what they said were significant improvements in the children’s social skills, including a reduction in behavioral problems and in dealing with emotional issues.