The more a young child is in contact with a screen, the less likely he is to sleep. This is what a new study published on the Nature site reveals. and conducted by English researchers (Universities of Birkbeck and London and King's College London). In itself, that's not very surprising, but where the study is more interesting is that it specifically looked at the effects of screens on the sleep of children between six months and three years old:for each hour spent on a screen, children lose almost 16 minutes of sleep...
We know the harmful effect of blue light from smartphone and tablet screens on adults:it reduces levels of melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep. This may also be the case in children. The researchers conducted an online survey of 715 parents, asking them to indicate the duration of their child's exposure to a screen (TV and touch screens), the duration of sleep day and night and the quality of sleep . First observation:nearly half of babies aged six to eleven months are in contact with a screen on a daily basis, a figure that rises to 92% for two-year-old children. Most importantly, they were able to estimate that every hour spent in front of a screen translated into 15.6 minutes less sleep and longer sleep time for babies. For the researchers, exposure to screens and blue light is therefore an explanation considered, but it is not the only one:they mention the fact that the distraction linked to screens could also explain the lack of sleep and alert on the fact that a sleep problem can be a sign of hyperactivity.
In short:for children, as for us, screens are in moderation!
