I could talk about this for hours, but "screen time" is too vague - placing a kid in front of a youtube autoplay stream is vastly different than playing a word game on the iPad with their parents right next to them.
I've found low effort, high stimulus creates bad behaviour, which is obvious. But specifically, it creates a low effort flow state, setting false expectations about life in general, and parents should make sure to minimize this kind of media.
However we found a few good apps, and both my kids knew the alphabet before 1 year old, and my 2 year old is drawing Chinese characters (he's spent 1/4th of his life in China) thanks to good apps, and having parents present while using them.
And passive media isn't all bad, How Things Work and David Attenborough, and anything space related has taught my kids a lot.
I wish more studies would not focus on "book time" vs "screen time", because what's really important is interactivity, such as being present with your child for them to bounce things off you, or apps that give small rewards for high effort tasks, rather than large rewards for low effort tasks - it just so happens that books are more conducive to this, but if you actually pay attention to what your child is doing, screens can be a powerful tool.
That being said, it's really tough being a parent, and sometimes you just want to put some high stimulus thing on the screen to get a break - in my experience, it's only bad when that becomes a habit or norm.
Not to pick on you, but this seems like a completely superficial goal.
As far as I can tell listening comprehension is by far the most important foundational language/reasoning skill.
I would be quite surprised if, all else equal, there were any long-term difference between a kid who learns the alphabet at age 1 and a kid who learns the alphabet at age 4.
On the other hand, the kids whose parents read to them for 1+ hours per day end up way ahead of their peers who aren’t read to.
I learned the alphabet at school, aged 5 or so, after I’d already been reading for a few years - I mean, I knew the letters and phonemes, but learning them in a specific order just seemed so arbitrary - because it is.
My parents read to me from a very early age, with the specific goal of getting me reading as early as possible in mind - and it worked. I still remember the “holy shit” moment when I finally decrypted Spot the Dog, which they must have read to me three times a day for months on end. I was reading ladybird books by the time I was 2.5, and Enid Blyton from aged 3 or so. From then on I preferred reading for myself, as it was faster, and I wasn’t reliant on a narrator who got bored after a chapter. I was hooked on stories - tv wasn’t really a thing, as we lived overseas and I was getting confused enough between Cantonese and English as it was - so I read books.
I was ahead throughout school, started university at 16 - I think mostly because my precocious and voracious reading had given me a store of knowledge and connections between concepts that my peers just didn’t have. I went through the entire popular science section at the junior school library in my first year, and then just coasted my way through class, while continuing to read on all subjects. There wasn’t much I was taught in class I didn’t already know.
So, I think it’s very much about early investment in reading - it encourages curiosity, and giving a knowledge hungry child the tools to have an infinite world of deep information available to them forges lifelong habits. I still read a book a week, give or take, and still thirst for more knowledge.
You seem to believe that it is because your parents were reading a lot to you that you were able to read by yourself at the age of 4.
We read books to our daughter at least 1 hour a day since she is maybe 1 year old. Yet she does not know or is even willing to read by herself, as most children of her age, which seems perfectly normal to us. But she already developed a love for books that will certainly be very useful to her for studies and entertainment. This is what we should aim for as parents.
But if parents are super dedicated to the goal of getting their kid to read as early as possible, and spend hours per day on reading drills, it’s probably not impossible for most kids to start independently reading simple books by 2.5 or 3.
I’m not convinced this is a goal particularly worth prioritizing, compared to development of other skills. YMMV.
A lot surely comes down to the personality and preferences of the kid.
I know it is possible for a few "special" kids to read at 2.5 or 3 (I didn't know about the word hyperlexia though, thanks for the link !). My point is that such kids will read very early, whether their parents are super dedicated or not (unless, of course, their parents have no book at all and never read which is unfortunately not so uncommon)
On the other hand I am convinced "normal" kids won't read before 5, whatever you do and how hard you try. This makes it even more unworthy to try to reach such goal imho.
> I am convinced "normal" kids won't read before 5, whatever you do and how hard you try
I am pretty sure a typical kid (say, at least 75% of all kids) could learn to read simple books by 3 if the parents were fanatical about it and spent hours every day prioritizing the kid learning to read per se, instead of focusing on broader goals. But it doesn’t seem to me like this is worth prioritizing so much, compared to all the other skills small kids should be practicing: gross motor control, strength, and stamina; fine motor skills; getting along with other kids; listening comprehension; logical reasoning; visual observation; understanding the behavior of physical objects; understanding living things; understanding their society and built environment; helping out with family chores; learning to take care of themselves; etc.
Most kids end up learning to read at 5–7 years old instead because the parents spend time doing other things with them, the kids spend time on other activities, and often the parents have other things to do and the kids must entertain themselves. This is totally fine.
My son is 3.5 and will probably be at the stage of reading simple books (say Green Eggs & Ham level) by about 4 or 4.5. I’m sure we could have gotten him to that point by 2.5 or 3 if we made it our top priority. But I’d much rather spend 1–2 hours per day reading a wide variety of enjoyable books to him and inculcating a love of books (not to mention practicing his listening comprehension, vocabulary, and general language skills) than spend that time on phonics drills.
There weren’t reading drills - it was just a constant activity. Any time we were out, they’d be pointing at signs and nudging me through sounding them out. I think the first word that I got the hang of reading was “garage” - it fascinated me that both g and a had two totally different sounds in a short word, and I probably saw it dozens of times a day around HK. At home I’d sit under the stairs painstakingly decrypting large print picture books. I’ve since applied the same technique to the Cyrillic, Arabic, and Japanese (Kanji+Kana) alphabets, and while I can speak nothing in any of those scripts well, being able to read them is unbelievably useful - and it was purely reading signs, menus, any simple printed information, and repeating until I was reading and pronouncing, if not understanding, confidently, if not well. To be honest, large print picture books probably would have helped. The other drawback of this approach to language is that one ends up with a somewhat archaic lexicon, and some stunning mispronunciations. I am in my mid 30s and still occasionally realise that I have been saying a common word incorrectly for my entire life - “origin” is the most recent example that springs to mind.
Hyperlexia - the term first crossed my path around eight or so, and struck and strikes me yet me as odd, insofar as it doesn’t define any special characteristic other than early and persistent reading. “Curious” is perhaps a better, if broader, moniker - and I guess if there’s one thing that underpins my parents’ entire pedagogical approach it was the imbuement of wonder into the world - everything was a mystery to be solved. They usually couldn’t give me answers, as they were young and unworldly, but they would answer my questions with a Socratic “what do you think?”, which would usually prompt me into going and reading something that might shed some light, or reasoning out the answer using my extant precepts.
So... while their focus might have been almost myopically on reading, it might not have worked had I been such a willing participant, and exposed to many, many things that made my infantile mind whirl.
Don’t get me wrong, I had crappy parents, like most people - but they got something really right in my early engagement with the printed word, whether advertently or serendipitously. It even meant that when my kid sister came along, while I was seven, that they were off the hook, as I wanted to read to her, and share this incredible world of words with my sibling - and she too was devouring books at an early age, stealing dog-eared Victorian adventure novels from my shelves - and yet her early years were far less experiential than mine, growing up in sheltered British suburbia rather than the neon-lit sweat-drenched riot of crass commercialism and swineherds, both literal and figurative, that was Hong Kong. She likewise was ahead at school, is knowledgeable about the world, has forged a path less trodden - so perhaps the early reading bit remains more important than the direct environment - after all, a good book is as good as a time machine and teleporter, and can take you anywhere.
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to suggest that your parents specifically were prioritizing reading above any other goal, but only (in response to ddrdrck_) that I believe it would be possible for the vast majority of parents and kids to get a kid reading simple books by about age 3 if the parents were willing to do so.
Thanks for the elaboration. I enjoyed reading about your experience.
ddrdrck_: If you are reading to your daughter for >1 hour every day, she’s going to come out way ahead on language skills whether or not she can read by age 4 or not.
> You seem to believe that it is because your parents were reading a lot to you that you were able to read by yourself at the age of 4.
IIRC, there's evidence that (like many things) independent reading is driven by parents modelling the behavior (independent reading), rather than by parents reading to children.
Getting off topic, since I just wanted to point out that screens CAN be good, and the more research lumps all "screen time" together the less research there is into HOW they can be better.
But we didn't push it or anything - my older one was just into the endless alphabet app, and that basic desire to be an expert on something made him point it out - my younger one always to keep up with the older one. I doubt I would have forced them to do it if I wanted it as a goal - I just try to encourage them to get deep on what they're already showing an interest in at this point. And that usually just takes praising the work they put in (and not the results), and answering any questions they have.
(edit) And yeah, there's no long-term differences, as a friend said "every adult knows how to st in a toilet". I say in another comment - advancement is more a random walk than a linear progression, in adulthood as well as toddlers.
Fair enough. There’s certainly nothing wrong with knowing the alphabet.
I’m just a bit jaded and fed up with a parenting culture / education system that focuses on rushing toward specific arbitrary milestones and memorizing lots of trivia, instead of trying to immerse little humans into a culture where skills and tools are learned through practical use and competence grows slowly over time.
E.g., in a different domain, it isn’t going to especially help anything if a kid takes their first steps at 9 months, and all of those special-purpose baby walker tools are essentially useless, but the kid who has tremendous core strength/stamina because they get lots of exercise crawling all around is going to come out ahead of average even if they don’t start walking until 14 months.
Totally agree - and, generally, the adults I know who were raised this way may be super talented but have so little creativity - at music school I knew this Korean violinist who was just amazing classical player, she could tell you the pitch of the brake squeal on a subway, but watching her try to improvise was painful.
There's a lot of pressure from other parents to compare kids, I think that's how that culture perpetuates at least here in the US. I just don't play that game.
(edit) This is also why I hate standardized testing which places kids is "advanced" and "normal" (implicitly slow) classes - everyone develops at their own rates, but the system implicitly assumes that early advancement rates are indicative of future advancement rates, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I think the music one has to do with how she was taught music. lf she was taught from sheet music early on that can greatly impact the ability for someone to improvise. If they where taught the basic technique of the instrument and then given time to free play and figure out songs by earn /experiment they'll have much better improvisen skills.
FWIW my then one year old knew the alphabet and how to count to 10 in three languages, count backwards from 20 in English, and we very often dumped him in front of a screen. We never structured any learning time on those subjects. He picked it all up from his wooden letter board and YouTube.
He's now two and when he has an off day because mom and dad are sick or exhausted with the baby, he gets a lot of screen time. And he will on his own take what he's been watching and apply it to his building blocks and other toys. He will spend an hour singing to himself and counting as he plays "Speedy the Number Train" with Duplo.
So much anecdata and so much parental fear. Justifiably so because you only get one chance at this and everyone's afraid of screwing up their kid. But I'm still incredibly skeptical that much of this matters a whole lot.
My own parental advice that I'm following for myself but not trying to push on anyone: above all else, configure my life so that I _always_ have a few hours a day of dedicated time with them. It doesn't matter much what we actually do. And avoid at all costs over-structuring their day or play. Let them lead.
FWIW my then 3mo beat me in checkers with the technique he learned from a _book_ I accidentally left on my desk. Now he’s 6mo and when we play I easily win using tricks I learned by watching _youtube_ videos. YMMV
I know you're mocking him, but I didn't read it as a flex at all. If you've raised a kid, it sounds about right, it's not outlandishly precocious, I think he was just saying that screen time doesn't make your kid dumb, what matters is just spending time daily with them, which is completely reasonable.
Then again, 1 year old don't have permanent memory yet, so as someone who raised a kid, I fail to see why I should care about when that kid memorizes the set of symbols first time.
General learning about world around, sure, but these super early mini academics don't matter.
Agreed. Which is generally what my comment is pointing out.
I'm delighted that my kid seems perfectly average. He's ahead in some ways, behind in others. I'm confident it will all be a wash by the time he's older. What matters is spending time with him. Not doing baby brain gymnastics.
Yup spending time with him and being a good model for him to learn from is the way to go.
Our first daughter is/was a super learner/reader and an all around go-getter that we could hardly slow down. She wanted to do all things and she was usually great at all things, academically or athletic. She went to Westpoint and had much success there.
Her 3 years younger sister didn't seem interested in learning to read at all, except for comic or cartoon books and she hated sports, dance, or music (learning). Mom was worried - what's wrong with her?!? She later came into her own and is as smart and succesful as her sister just in different ways (CS major). Her older sister is always coming to her for advice.
Everyone says "it goes so fast" and I always smiled and nodded because sleepless nights with an infant dragged on. Then I blinked and they were 1 and 3.
Yep. Was trying to point out that there are so many random things (including those that are mind-blowing wrt abilities at a given early age) happening with kids, only few are actually to be used as reasoning or any sort of long-term predictions.
Also, completely side note: you tend to give more weight to random things happening with first kid than with the next ones. Raising more than one atm.
Did not intend to mock, though could keep from adding some color.
I wish I could believe this statement. At 3mo the motor control is not sufficiently developed to precisely move pieces, nevermind read a book. Can you offer proof? Please amaze me.
"We avoided screen time in the womb and my child could communicate with full Morse code using kicks at 8 months of gestation. Now let me tell you how to parent."
Wasn't trying to make a negative comment (though could help adding a bit extra color). I know the excitement and wanting to read too much from random things happening with kids at early age. Especially if it's your first kid ;)
"placing a kid in front of a youtube autoplay stream is vastly different than playing a word game on the iPad with their parents right next to them."
Based on my own experiences and internal states, I would still observe that "screen time" tends to have problems at a very low sensory level, in that even when you're doing something educational, you still have the problem that relatively tiny inputs tend to produce outsized sensory effects compared to what the rest of the world yields. I have to admit I cringe a tiny bit when my kids are playing their mandatory educational games and they correctly add two numbers together, and they get a loud chicken squawk and an animation. That's not how the real world works, you do not get loud sounds and animations simply for adding two numbers together. Even if your forebrain is getting trained in something useful like numbers, you can still be feeding dubious input to the lower-level brain systems.
But, that said, screens are a part of the modern world and they must be learned to be dealt with, and it's still better to have something interactive and productive be the bulk of the time than mere flashy empty calories. I'd even distinguish between good video that you engage with, think about, try to guess what's next, think about what makes it work, and video where it's merely flashy-flash bang-boom entertainment. There's a time and a place for the latter; we all need R&R, but it's not large.
There is a way to recover some value even from the over-stimulative nature of the media, which is that as they grow up, they're going to be under attack by advertisers and journalists (but I repeat myself) who abuse overstimulation as much as they possibly can to convince you to do something that costs you but benefits them by overloading your brain, basically. Some training and practice in resisting such things is helpful.
"relatively tiny inputs tend to produce outsized sensory effects" - this is what I was getting at with "low effort, high stimulus", and it's def bad.
My point is by dismissing "screen time" wholesale, we create an environment where those types of /quote educational game /unquote are the only option. When people who are serious about education won't take apps/games seriously, they leave a vacuum filled by at best the pure sugar empty calories, and at worst by microtransaction scams. Any app that has a call to action in it gets deleted from the iPad my kids use. It's like saying all movies are trash because the most popular movies are trash.
And this is reflected by the current state of educational games - I know there are good ones because I've seen my kids learn with them, and I believe there could be MORE good ones, but the people who have the empathy and experience to make good ones have already thrown away the proverbial baby with the proverbial bath water
Ugh, I know, right. I'm still waiting for the education app that isn't "a drill quiz, ... but on a computer! [1]", or "a drill quiz but with flashylights when you get it right/wrong" to be used at scale by schools.
I have seen some that get like a special day at school. There was something they did with Scratch, for instance.
I've thought that part of the reason that all the studies are showing that computers don't seem to help with education are just showing that computers as they are currently used don't help with education. A key element of ... but on a computer! is that if you just take something from the physical world and put it on a computer, you end up with the disadvantages of both compounding. To successfully put something on a computer, you need to work out a way to harness the unique advantages a computer can give you to make up for the inevitable disadvantages it brings. Simply randomizing numbers for addition & multiplication isn't really it.
> I've thought that part of the reason that all the studies are showing that computers don't seem to help with education are just showing that computers as they are currently used don't help with education. A key element of ... but on a computer! is that if you just take something from the physical world and put it on a computer, you end up with the disadvantages of both compounding.
What's amazing to me is that this is still being discussed, even though a solution to the problem was found decades ago:
I have fond memories of some of the old Apple II games, and my kids have enjoyed the ones they've tried. No real emulation of anything physical, usually played by kids in pairs, and the feedback loop was slow enough that you couldn't just try lots of random things instead of thinking. Some I've tried with my kids at various times are The Pond, The Factory, and Rocky's Boots. I don't know of modern equivalents. Maybe Manufactoria?
What kids play in school though these days (does that make me sound old?) are things like Prodigy (prodigygame.com), featuring decent graphics but mind-numbing content, with constant nags to upgrade to a premium account.
You summarised very well many problems with this article.
I'd like to add one more. They draw a comparison between "a preschooler who is often read to by a caregiver" and "a preschooler who likely spends an average of two hours a day playing on screens".
I'm sure many kids correspond to both descriptions.
Reading the guidelines now, "Use known letters (or their best attempt to write the letters) to represent written language especially for meaningful words like their names or phrases such as "I love you."" - they weren't WRITING letters before 1. That would be crazy, simply because their muscles aren't nearly developed enough to do that kind of detailed work by 1. My oldest didn't start writing his name out until 3.
Also, the US Dept of Education guidelines are really like "if this isn't happening by this age, then there's a problem" - in terms of brains, kids develop at vastly different speeds - they can jump ahead and then fall behind - I personally didn't get math until a very late age thanks to a good teacher, thank god standardized testing wasn't the norm or else I would have been put on the "slow track". My older son is advanced in some ways, but way behind in others.
There is no blueprint for what kids should know when, and advancement is closer to a random walk than a linear progression. (how the physical body develops, which bounds stuff like speaking, writing, etc is pretty linear though)
It is true, though I'll give two minor concessions/clarifications:
My 2 year old is basically 3 - his birthday is in Feb, close enough that calling him 2-year-old is bending the truth, but not technically breaking it :)
The alphabet thing is totally true - Largely due to Endless Alphabet, which is a rare really well designed learning app - but I will say that learning what sounds go with what alphabet letters is a specific type of education that really plays to the screen strengths and isn't as transferable to other types of education. The fact that I don't have another example like that one to demonstrate the power of educational apps shows that this might be exception rather than the rule.
On Endless Alphabet, when you drag the letters around (something kids get right away) it repeats the letter pronunciation again and again in different ways, and it still cracks them up. Then we finish dragging them, you get treated to a little funny animated video that are really well made. So they could play with that for hours, and knew all the pronunciations from there, and the order from the song (well the song is basically how I still know it). We'd test them when we pass signs on the street/sidewalk, and they did struggle, but both would get all the letters before they turned 1.
You wouldn't believe how badly most kids apps are made, even the big ones like hooked on phonics. Things like supporting multi-touch are essential since they don't have great motor skills, and not nailing that can be really confusing and frustrating for a child, who tends to think everything is because they can't do it, not because the app didn't implement it well. And the rest of the "Endless X" apps teaching other skills (maths, music) don't work as well as Endless Alphabet, I think it works exceedingly well for the specific memorization task of matching sounds to icons.
I also find this hard to believe. We use similar alphabet learning apps with my 15 month old, who is progressing very well in other aspects, but she has not yet grasped the alphabet.
I allow my kids (4 & 5) a fair bit of screen time. They each have a ThinkPad and they love Minecraft. They are learning to read and type to search the inventory, surf Curseforge for mods, and navigate the dialog boxes in MultiMC for installing the add-ons. They can watch YouTube too, which is inevitably Minecraft tutorials, which they immediately want to put into practice.
I'm happy to see this. They have their own projects and they are learning lots of random real-world skills to move those projects forward. They are having "hard fun" in Seymour Papert's terms.
I'm still maintaining their configuration.nix for now though...
> but if you actually pay attention to what your child is doing, screens can be a powerful tool.
I related elsewhere how my parents, long since passed away, read to me from physical books and encouraged my education.
I don't have children, but I think you have hit the nail on the head; ultimately everything is just a tool - the important part is the parents interacting with their child's education, using the tools they have available.
I have no doubt that had my mother had access to an ipad or whatever, that she would have used that as well to teach and encourage my learning. As it was, the only other media besides books was television - and so PBS and "Sesame Street" was on, and she'd watch it with me.
But other shows she liked were also educational to an extent - such as game shows; Price is Right can teach a lot of things about money and counting, and Wheel of Fortune can teach words and letters. But it wasn't just plopping me down in front of the TV - she was there with me, asking me questions, teaching me how to figure out things on my own.
Which is what you are also doing with your children, but using the tools that are available today; but I think even if you didn't have access to those tools, you'd still find a way to interact and teach your children, and that's the best thing they could ever have.
One thing missing for me is if reading print books is different from ebooks and read along books? I’m legally blind so I spend a majority of my reading time on some kind of electronic device because I can zoom or enlarge text. Articles like this don’t differentiate whether the medium or the activity is the problem so I’m left wondering if reading with my kid on an iPad is worse than a print book or not and whether having someone else read for us together is different than if I read to her myself. I spent so much of my youth playing video games that I’m not concerned it’ll be a huge factor in her life but it would be great to be able to be better informed about the pros and cons of each approach.
Just another parent here, but regardless of the medium, what you are doing is reading with your kids. You’re able to stop, explain something when it’s clear your kid isn’t following. They’re able to see the words your focused on. All of those micro interactions are what make reading with your kids valuable — the fact that you use a tool that enables you to have that experience with your kid doesn’t take away from that. (Just my opinion.)
Screen time is inherently lazy. Young children do not have complex learning/entertainment requirements where a book or pens and paper wouldn’t suffice.
Make your own entertainment/learning tools, it’s part of the fun.
So even though you may think the educational aspect as well as bring present is good enough, you’re still training your kids to go straight to screens instead of putting in effort or just being bored.
Finding things to do, being creative is a part of being a kid, and at that age, IMO, you’re doing a huge disservice to them.
I'm also interested in which apps klik99 recommends.
Here are the apps I've whitelisted on my 3 year old's iPad. I don't like having video on there because I found passive video consumption dominates all other activities. I've found with a hand-picked set of apps, she naturally self-limits her screen time.
- Khan Academy Kids. A pretty large library of educational content that nevertheless is engaging enough to compete with the other apps she has access to. Does have a few videos though. https://www.khanacademy.org/kids
In a world where most adults of the current generation spend almost more time in front of the screen than away from it, one would indeed think that "screen time" means nothing in and of itself.
I think we also completely fail in every way to measure the benefit — because adaption, evolution tells us one thing: while there are "better" and "worse" paths, it's only ever retrospectively; the corrolary is that it's almost impossible to actually predict evolution, to "design" it — it's sci-fi, for now. So I've always been wary of applied fields faced with a paradigm change, in history: they always tend to lag a lot, even more so than people outside the field — perhaps because they're so deep in it that they can't see what's obvious to a bystander, idk.
Note that it's healthy, in science — skepticism is what makes us great, in a way, because we don't condone "intuition" as "theory" unlike any other endeavor of the human mind. But science is not up to predict individual let alone social evolution, a far, far cry from it that's even on the side of "maybe's" in some abstract idealistic future.
Right now, we're left with trying to make the best out of what we've got to prepare kids for a future we can't see ourselves, and we probably take a cue or two for our own life in that process — I'll let you be the judge of whether parenting is a learning experience...
My intuition, deep down, is that a reasonable¹ dose of exposure to technological tools is very desirable in developing one's fluency with said tech; and may constitute one of these hard to measure but clearly obvious — you "know it when you see it" — difference between "nerds" or "geeks" and the "computer illiterate" (which, I observe, are less but still many in the millenials generation compared to X and boomers, contrary to my initial intuition).
Generally, I think one should trust each step of the way their "gut feeling" about the development of their children, and adjust accordingly, remain in a "safe zone", sane defaults when in doubt. It's also been shown to a convincing extent that "just trying hard, for real" and "showing up, being there" and being very human in simply trying to communicate with children, is as sure as we have of a recipe for success — because it's bound to be very relevant, very ad hoc to your own situation, and thus that of your children. Go against the grain if it makes them better if your eyes and in their experience of life, just don't ignore hard facts from other parents as well.
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¹ By "reasonable" I mean not impairing other development; but it's also "reasonable" to envision that some skills are less useful nowadays than 50 or 500 years ago (despite the brain's ability for them, and our ability to measure abstractly relevant "improvements" or "impairments" here or there). Conversely that some are more useful, but we may not yet test for these.
Actually, the title claims something, what the study doesn't. It states:
"More nurturing home reading environment prior to kindergarten may stimulate brain development supporting language and literacy skills, reinforcing the need for further study."
It is an observational study, which tries to correct for various obvious factors, but they cannot separate the environment, where more home reading is happening from actual more home reading (vs screen time).
Worse: brain scans can't prove this kind of claim at all, so the title is really yet another piece of lousy science journalism. The only support comes from old-fashioned cognitive tests, and the effect was only found for linguistic skills. So yeah.
If I had a dime for every pop science article that shows "good parts of the brain light up in MIR machine for X" images... well I'd have a helluva lot of dimes
Isn't the impact of parents who provide a "nurturing environment" versus those who don't pretty well established?[0] If so, then that definitely needs to be accounted for before anything can be said about what kind of nurturing environment works best.
[0] I must admit I base this on Oliver Sacks' account of Dr Hilde Schlesinger's work on mother-child relationships all the way back in the seventies - but as far as "knowledge heuristics" go, I think "trusting that Oliver Sacks did his homework" is a pretty good one.
> Isn't the impact of parents who provide a "nurturing environment" versus those who don't pretty well established?
Studies which control for genetic confounding (twin and adoption studies) tend to show that parents have essentially zero impact on how children turn out. Genetics explains about half of the variance we see in how people turn out. The test is randomness. Caveats: within the range of normal. Obviously seriously injuring or killing your child has a permanent affect on how they turn out.
The other half isn't random, it's mostly "non-shared environment", in other words the environment outside the home, whether that be school or play with friends or whatever.
My source for this is the book The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. IIRC she concludes the most likely reality is that personality is shaped 50% by genetics, 45% by non-shared environment and 5% shared environment (i.e. parenting). Big caveat to all this: this is personality as in how one relates to the outside world, not how one relates to their parents, which is indeed strongly determined by parenting and one of the reasons what so many studies that studied the link between parenting and kids' personality characteristics (almost invariably measured in the presence of mommy or daddy) found such a link.
“Non-shared environment” just means anything that differs between the two kids. This could include their different treatment by the same adults, their different choices of activities, differences in the subconscious mental processes, their different adopted roles inside the family, their different diseases or injuries, their asymmetrical relationship with each-other, etc. It doesn’t have to be outside the home.
Twin studies don’t reveal exactly what the causes were of different outcomes. All they can do is statistically split causes into broad classes based on the differences between twins raised together or apart and based on the differences between identical vs. fraternal twins.
The article doesn't mention anything about what the researchers controlled for. Some other explanations that fit the data:
1. Parents who take good care of their children in other ways also tend to read to their children (perhaps because they're conscientious and have read other research that says reading helps brain development, so they read to their kids). It's actually the "take good care of their children in other ways" that makes the difference, and reading just correlates.
2. There is a shared genetic factor between parent and child. Parents with this factor are more likely to read to their children. Children with this factor score better on literacy tests. Any factor that affects intelligence or personality would fit the bill.
3. Reading doesn't affect language skills, but they are instead caused by other environmental or genetic factors. Children who have factors that lead to good language ability enjoy hearing stories, and their caregivers adapt by reading to them more. Children without those factors react poorly to being read to, so their caregivers read to them less.
A randomized controlled trial would tell us much more about whether reading actually causes any later outcomes.
There have been many studies about this. Listening to books read aloud pretty convincingly causes accelerated language development, after controlling for other factors.
[For example randomized interventions aimed at convincing parents to read aloud to their kids more often have a positive impact on the kids.]
Tangential: Reading to my children has been one of the unexpected joys of raising them, the oldest is now ten and I still typically read to her for 30-45 minutes a night. It gives me a chance to revisit books I enjoyed decades ago and compare her reactions to my own at that age and now and it gives us a broad and deep shared world beyond the day-to-day (one of the biggest arguments for reading "the classics" IMO is that it allows you to tap into a longer and deeper cultural conversation than we typically have access to via more contemporary cultural products).
My 10 year old reads about 30 minutes or so a day on her own, she loves it. Though she isn't interested in too many classics so far. She has trained herself to get tired from reading, it puts her to bed every night.
Hmm I read it as "if you read/are being read to more, you're doing better at reading". Am I wrong?
I do think the younger generation is shooting themselves in the foot with not being able to assimilate information by reading any more (video tutorials take 10x the time to convey the same amount of information if you can actually read efficiently), but this study seems to basically say that you're not proficient at a skill you don't practice?
> (video tutorials take 10x the time to convey the same amount of information if you can actually read efficiently
Many subjects are better suited to video and can be conveyed more efficiently so. Especially complex UIs, in my experience. Learning to use and find my way around Maya was way easier and quicker using video than text with images. I definitely feel the same way about learning to do specific car repairs/maintenance.
Agreed. I never understood the videos for programming language courses at, say, Coursera.
Written material is better and clearer. The slow speed of the videos drives me mad. Instead of digesting the information and examples at your own pace, you must watch as the teacher carefully enunciates his words and takes forever to belabor a point you already understood.
But strangely enough, some people prefer video to actually reading a detailed, step-by-step written tutorial. Go figure.
They didn’t just measure being able to read. They also focused on verbal ability using the EVT-2 and CTOPP-2 Rapid Object Naming tests. From what I can find, neither of those tests involve reading.
According to its documentation, “The EVT–2 measures expressive vocabulary and word retrieval of the spoken word in standard American English and thus assesses vocabulary acquisition.”
The details of the CTOPP-2 Rapid Object Naming test are harder to find, but it is a part of the test that is considered to not rely on reading. From the docs “ Rapid Non-Symbolic Naming Composite Score (RNNCS) comprises the standard scores of two subtests-Rapid Color Naming and Rapid Object Naming and offers an alternative for young children, ages 4 through 6 year olds, not familiar with letters and numbers. The RNNCS measures the examinee's ability to include efficient retrieval of phonological information from long-term or permanent memory and executing a sequence of operations quickly and repeatedly using objects and colors.“
I'm often concerned that studies that assess screen time (especially in contrast to reading or other cognitively rich activities) don't seem (ever, so far as I can tell) to assess two areas that seem important:
1) The distinction in content being delivered via a screen: ie, does watching Mighty Pups result in measurably different brain activity or development than Studio Ghibli films? Common sense suggests so, but why aren't these studies assessing that?
2) The function of a parent or adult companion to help with understanding and integration of the content - does watching media alone result in different outcomes than watching with an attentive parent?
However, this study doesn't even seem to actually measure any aspect of screen time at all - it just looked at differences between households that used "Get ready to READ!", a particular reading curriculum which requires parents and children to read together, vs those that didn't.
I think books and screen time are both important. Given the incredible ability for parents to curate decades of incredible digital media, from series to TV to classic video games, it seems crazy to me to refrain from substantial collaboration with our kids in enjoying and reflecting on these media.
Now, sometimes parents end up using screen time as a way of babysitting, with media that hasn't even been viewed by the parent, much less together with the child. I admit that I myself have occasionally fallen into this form, but I don't like it, and it's not what I'm talking about when I suggest that screen time is an overall good thing.
But why aren't these studies measuring that difference?!
My 4-year-old gets a lot of screen time (and a lot of book time, and board game time) and I think that's great. We play classic NES and SNES games, watch age-appropriate (but socially meaningful) movies, and explore the internet together to learn about his interests. Until a serious study (ideally much larger than this one, with 70 participants) actually addresses the realities of the media being delivered and the methodology and its delivery, I find it hard to take seriously for making my own parenting decisions.
My wife is a pediatric OT and her mother (who is quite active with my son) is a kindergarten teacher, and their observation over the last ten/thirty years (respectively) is that the major culprit isn't screen time, it's screen time as a babysitter/mollifier.
My 3yo gets 30-45 minutes of screen time a day. But there's always an adult with him, there to talk about it, etc.
After evaluating behavioral problems in kids and their home lifes, my wife is convinced that while there are concerns about tablet video games in toddlers, etc., half the culprit is parents saying "I'll just leave Sally here to watch Super Wings while I go cook dinner."
You don't have to watch Peppa Pig. And if you do, you can (the first time through) curate episodes that are better (like the composting one) and just not repeat the really stupid ones.
Old school Sesame Street is a lot of fun for adults. The early Zelda games are great. Kiki, Ponyo, and Totoru are staples. I mean, like I said, this an incredible wealth of content from the past few decades; don't dwell on Peppa.
It is still completely pointless. There is no reason to prevent kid to see an episode of peppa the pig I personally like the least. It is not like the kid would be harmed by seeing episode of peppa that I personally find stupid.
There are million things I would still like better then watching any of that.
And also, most importantly, the idea that parent needs to be glued to child constantly and should do anything else any time is what I disagree with too. Should you ignore kid all the time? No, it is neglect. Can the kid play alone some times or watch peppa without parent? Absolutely yes.
I mean, yeah sure. But consuming media for the first time without a parent? Ideally, no, I think it's good to be with them the first time they see something.
Vilifying screen time isn't great either, are the negative effects coming from actual screens or brightly-coloured games designed for dopamine hits? Is reading on a screen functionally different from a book in terms of attention span?
"...Conclusion: Main findings show that students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally..."
Possible reasons why (by the authors of the study):
- due to the length of the stimulus text, difference could be related to issues of navigation within the document
- scrolling as it's imposing a spatial instability which may negatively affect the reader’s mental representation of the text and, by implication, comprehension
- disrupted mental maps of the text in digital group, which may be reflected in poorer understanding and ultimately poorer recall of presented material
- the dual-task involved in switching between two windows displayed on the same computer screen is likely to present additional cognitive challenges to the reader (one displaying the text to be read, the other displaying the questions to be answered)
- the common perception of digital screen presentation as an information source intended for shallow messages may reduce the mobilization of cognitive resources
- LCD computer screens like the ones used in this study are known to cause visual fatigue due to their emitting light. In contrast, ebook technologies based on electronic ink, such as Kindle and Koboo, are merely reflecting light
"Digitally" seems to mean computer screen in that study. I wonder how smaller screens compare, and different display types (LCD, vs OLED, vs eInk). A kindle should be functionally pretty much like paper.
I remember reading a study that concluded retention from reading on a Kindle / e-ink device was lower.
They concluded that the physical differences of books (size, weight, feel, cover) may help to form memories.
I can't say the above is proven fact. Citation definitely needed, but I find it a compelling idea, and would like to learn more.
Incidentally efficient language learning also uses somewhat superfluous activities to help create memories and improve retention. Our brains do seem to thrive off stimulation from multiple sources.
Are there studies about how much you can read? I can see this getting applied to all reading and making students read from textbooks as if it will help. Were reading isn't what's important, rather finding what to read is.
There's like three different answers given here, and none of them mention distraction, I find it functionally impossible to read for study on my phone or computer for extended period without getting distracted even by things you wouldn't think of as distractions. Notifications distract, the ability to play music at all, the software that I'm reading on, highlighting text as I go, I just do not have a brain that makes it easy to read on a computer, and I think a lot of young people don't either.
e-readers and physical books just don't provide as many possibilities for distraction.
I've read that the tactile aspects of physical books help a lot. This is very anecdotal as I kind find the particular reference I was thinking of.
But personally I can recall the specific size, weight, smell and texture of physical books I've read. It adds context and helps distinguish books as independent physical entities which (I believe) helps with recall. On the other hand digital books have begun to blend together for me.
The obvious difference to me is, that the e-ink screen is not flickering.
Every other screen flickers when it gets updated 60+ times a second. They say it is too fast to notice for the eye, but I doubt that. Also a normal screen is an active light source.
E-ink is passive.
All in all, I can read for hours on a e-ink display, but my eyes hurt soon on a normal screen. But az least they improved a lot compared from the old bulky ones.
Contrast ratios likely play into this as well. I ran across some research a while ago that found that a contrast ratio of about 8:1 is ideal for readability. E-ink is pretty close to that optimum (usually around 10-15:1 these days). Whereas for conventional screens contrast ratios keep being pushed higher and higher (1000:1 is pretty typical). While this is great for video, it makes sense that at some point it becomes tiring for the eye when viewing black text on a white background (imagine trying to focus on an object superimposed against the sky on a blindingly bright summer day).
There are differences - like the ability to more easily flick backwards and forwards by several pages - whether this is enough to make a difference I can't tell, but it is one of the reasons I prefer to read non fiction in book rather than ebook form.
>> like the ability to more easily flick backwards and forwards by several pages
The only time I flick forwards is to see how much is left of the chapter, backwards is max one page, kindle have status for how much is left. So guess that depends on how you normally read
When reading non-fiction where there are complex arguments that extend over multiple pages it is useful to be able to flick backwards and forwards to follow the argument. Similarly books with long footnotes, where you may want to refer to a previous footnote.
> the Remember–Know paradigm describes two main types of retrieval response, Remember versus Know. Knowledge which is Remembered is typically recollected in close association with related information pertaining to the learning episode. By contrast, knowledge which is Known is recalled, retrieved and applied without any such additional contextual associations and ‘‘thus, is information which is simply based on a certain sense of just knowing or familiarity [. . .].’’ (Noyes & Garland, 2003, p. 415) One important implication is that the Remember type of memory is thus more vulnerable to fading with time, than knowledge which is Known. By implication, it is assumed that knowledge which is Known is indicative of better learning (Conway, Gardiner, Perfect, Anderson, & Cohen, 1997; Herbert & Burt, 2001). In their experiment, Noyes and Garland (2003) found no differences between the two media (paper versus VDT) in terms of study and reading times, and number of correct answers. On the qualitative comprehension measures, however, there was an effect of presentation medium, with Remember frequencies being almost twice that of Know frequencies in the computer group, while Remember and Know response levels were similar in the Paper group. Noyes and Garland conclude that ‘‘characteristics of the computer screen (refresh rate, high levels of contrast and fluctuating luminance) interfere with cognitive processing for long-term memory’’ (2003, p. 420). These findings were replicated in a later study (Garland & Noyes, 2004),
where the medium was either a PDF or a print version.
> There are several possible explanations why, in the present study, subjects in the print condition scored significantly higher on the comprehension tests than those in the screen condition. Considering the length of the stimulus text, and the fact that the computer condition text was in PDF format, the difference in comprehension performance between the print and the computer group could be related to issues of navigation within the document. When reading on screen, scrolling is inevitable unless the text is within the screen size. Scrolling is known to hamper the process of reading, by imposing a spatial instability which may negatively affect the reader’s mental representation of the text and, by implication, comprehension (Baccino, 2004; Eklundh, 1992; Piolat, Roussey, & Thunin, 1997). By presenting the texts as PDFs, we intended to minimize the potentially negative effects of scrolling. However, the scrolling option was not excluded from our material. We have no data showing whether or not, and to what extent, the students in the computer condition used the scrolling option when reading the texts. Hence, it cannot be eliminated that students in the computer condition scrolled during reading, and that this scrolling negatively impacted their comprehension performance
I'd like to see a study where the computer test uses an iPad with a PDF app that does horizontal paging instead of scrolling (which is generally what I do with my non-fiction ebooks).
Honestly, the study is worth reading. There are some other factors they mention that could explain the difference, such as the spatial representation and immediate access to the whole text, physical dimensionality, etc.
The article is more about being read TO by a caregiver, not so much the babies reading themselves (as far as I've understood). So it might be more related to verbal communication I guess.
It seems there could be some correlation rather than cause as parent attentiveness or nurturing behavior is more beneficial in general in terms of lowering child stress and providing a feeling of being loved or taken care of. A positive environment from that would result in a better situation for the child's growth so it would be difficult to strip out the nurturing side of things toward "screen time" vs. not, IMO.
As I was reading this I began to wonder if there were confounding factors here.
The original study did mention controlling for age, gender, and income... though I can't help but think that there can easily be other confounding factors. Maybe parents who read to their kids altogether spent more time with them and it's that kind of attachment that really had the benefits. Maybe it's the simple act of holding your child that's giving them the benefits.
Also, whenever a study like this comes out I can't help but think of the mechanism that could be causing this. Why would reading to a child have substantial more benefits than screen time? What if the screen time were a reading simulation app? What if you read a book to your child that happened to be on an iPad? What if you held the child and showed them a reading simulation app without actually reading to them yourself?
Some part of me doesn't think it's as simple as "screen bad, book good"
I didn't like how the article bifurcates screen time and reading - as if kids only get one or the other. Where are the scans of kids that do both screen time and reading?
I have 3 kids, we read to all of them from birth. They all read every night. Two of my kids also love time on the iPad/devices - though we limit them to 2 hours per day total after lots of fights about when to put the devices down. All of my kids get lots of outside play too. We just don't fit neatly into the categories of the article here. As far as I can tell, my kids are doing fine, screen time and all. You just need moderation and to mix it up. Screens are not inherently bad, its about how you use them.
At the end of the day, the more you can engage with your kid, the better — but modest amounts of shows, games, etc are not going to ruin their life. Sometimes parents need a break, so they can be at their best the other 99% of the time. That’s ok! It’s ok to find a middle way between plopping a kid down in front of the TV for three to six hours a day (familiar to me and probably a lot of people who grew up in the 80s and 90s), and stressing that any screens will rot their brains and ruin their chance at getting into Stanford two decades from now.
Not sure how, but other than brain damage two brains wouldn't look different like that. We don't have the tech for registering the difference in smarts even if it existed between reading and screen time.
I know the pictures are a mix of the children, but don't understand how?
It feels like the researchers have picked a technique that will give two different pictures, no matter what given a mix of kids aka a pretty picture for the media.
I'm sure in the journal article they have not lied. But I can't understand after reading it what the pictures are. Clever.
"Taking away screens and reading to our children during the formative years of birth to age 5 boosts brain development. We all know that's true, but now science can convince us with startling images."
We all know that is true? All my alarm bells go off. It all sounds very logical and may be exactly what we expect and want to hear. At the same time I wonder what happens to research that show benefits of digital gadgets to the development of kids.
I find it amazing that people are trying to justify screens in any way. Just because a game says is "educational" it's not. Similar to the way "diet" soda keeps you skinny. Regardless of research, people want to believe they're not wrong and try to justify that certain kinds of screen time are ok.
Screen time can be great for kids. It's just not a substitute for playing with peers, interacting with parents, playing with physical toys, doings crafts, singing and playing music, reading physical books, experiencing nature, eating, or sleeping.
But assuming your child is getting more than enough of all those, it's great.
It's an accepted recommendation by pediatricians to not expose kids under 2 years old to tv. The jury is still out there with tables and the such. They are way more addictive, but also more interactive.
I credit much of my success in grade school and now as an adult to the fact that my mom consistently and constantly encouraged me to read.
She at first did this, when I was a toddler, by teaching me my ABCs and counting while she "did her bills"; I can't explain her accounting methods, but there were always dates and numbers and months and...well you get the idea. She would encourage me to tell her "what month comes next" or "what number is that"...
Then, as I got older, she started to read to me; first, from a set of "animal encyclopedia" books my parents got from the grocery store as a "give-away"...
(aside: they don't really do this much any more, but back then to get customers to come shop, grocery stores and supermarkets would run these giveaway things where, if you spent so much money, or collected so many "stamps", you could get "this month's book", or dishes, or utensils or whatever - so you'd build up a complete encyclopedia set over the course of a year or so)
...then later from similar encyclopedia books about science; she would read to me about "the brain" or "the lungs" or "the heart" - then other subjects, and I would "read along" with her - she'd ask me "what does this say" and I would read it.
One other thing I remember my mom encouraging me to do was recognizing car models and makes; I'm not sure why or if that even fits in here - but it was something I recall.
As I got older, both of my parents would buy me books on any subject I desired. I also had several magazine subscriptions (I once had three different computer magazines coming in - Family Computing, K-Power, and the Rainbow, plus Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Omni). They purchased and I had access to two different sets of Encyclopedia Brittanica. I had my own library card by the time I was in the second grade for the city library system.
At one time I recall I had some problems with reading and spelling - and my parents got one of those "hooked on phonics" sets and worked with me on that. Ultimately I went from being an average student to doing much better work and having an easier time in school.
But all of that ultimately led to my life today; their encouragement of reading, and of "finding out the answers on my own" ("Dad, what's this and that?" I'd ask - my dad would reply "Let's look it up in the encyclopedia!") also encouraged me to become a self-learner, among other things. They were always encouraging my education, and helping me however they could (when they saw how much I liked computers, they bought me one, and upgrades - this was in the 1980s mind you, and none of it was cheap).
I wouldn't be the person or the software engineer I am today had it not been for their efforts and sacrifices. My parents weren't wealthy (my dad did road construction for the county, my mom was a "stay at home" mother who earned extra side-money by selling eggs from our chickens) - but they both knew the importance of an education, and were always involved in it for me.
I've found low effort, high stimulus creates bad behaviour, which is obvious. But specifically, it creates a low effort flow state, setting false expectations about life in general, and parents should make sure to minimize this kind of media.
However we found a few good apps, and both my kids knew the alphabet before 1 year old, and my 2 year old is drawing Chinese characters (he's spent 1/4th of his life in China) thanks to good apps, and having parents present while using them. And passive media isn't all bad, How Things Work and David Attenborough, and anything space related has taught my kids a lot.
I wish more studies would not focus on "book time" vs "screen time", because what's really important is interactivity, such as being present with your child for them to bounce things off you, or apps that give small rewards for high effort tasks, rather than large rewards for low effort tasks - it just so happens that books are more conducive to this, but if you actually pay attention to what your child is doing, screens can be a powerful tool.
That being said, it's really tough being a parent, and sometimes you just want to put some high stimulus thing on the screen to get a break - in my experience, it's only bad when that becomes a habit or norm.