Child and parent screen use and their association with child development from birth to age 6
Chercheur.e principal.e :
Caroline FitzpatrickCochercheur.es :
Gabrielle Garon-Carrier, Roseane De Fatima Guimaraes Czelusniak, Audrey-Ann Deneault, Sheri Madigan (cochercheuses), Ben Carter (collaborateur)État du projet :
En coursDates :
avril 2026 - mars 2031Résumé :
The increasing presence of screens in young children’s family and educational environments has raised widespread concerns regarding their potential impacts on health and development. Although Canadian and international guidelines recommend limiting screen exposure in early childhood, the majority of children do not meet these recommendations. Prior research has largely focused on the duration of children’s screen use, thereby overlooking the multidimensional nature of screen exposure, including the type of activities (e.g., watching videos, video chatting), the context of use (e.g., co-use with parents, background exposure, use before bedtime), and the settings in which screens are used, such as the home and daycare. This narrow focus has limited our understanding of how different patterns of screen use may contribute to both positive and negative developmental outcomes.
Emerging evidence suggests that certain forms of screen use, particularly interactive activities and parent–child co-use, may be associated with beneficial cognitive and psychosocial outcomes, whereas other contexts of use are linked to poorer physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development. In addition, increasing attention has been given to early childhood problematic media use, characterized by excessive preoccupation with screens and disengagement from non-screen activities. While problematic media use has been linked to adverse psychosocial outcomes in older children and adolescents, little is known about its early developmental origins and consequences. Moreover, children’s broader screen-use ecology remains poorly understood. In particular, parental screen use and technoference—the intrusion of technology into parent–child interactions—have been shown to disrupt interaction quality, yet their longer-term developmental implications remain unclear. Child screen exposure in daycare settings has also been largely neglected, despite policy recommendations in Québec limiting screen use in these environments.
The overarching objective of this project is to better understand how child and parent screen use contributes to physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development between the ages of 0 and 6 years. Objective 1 is to describe profiles of child screen use based on duration, nature, and context, and to examine their associations with developmental outcomes. Objective 2 is to assess the independent and joint contributions of parental screen use and technoference to child development, as well as the explanatory pathways involved, such as sleep and parent–child interactions. Objective 3 aims to estimate the prevalence, determinants, and developmental consequences of early childhood problematic media use. Finally, Objective 4 seeks to document screen use in daycare settings and to examine its cumulative and interactive contributions to child outcomes.
These objectives will be achieved by leveraging a large, population-based longitudinal Québec birth cohort of over 4,700 children. This project will address critical gaps in the literature while accounting for child, parent, and family-level risk and protective factors, including social inequalities in health, and will generate evidence to inform public policy, clinical guidance, and prevention efforts related to early childhood screen use.
Organisme.s subventionnaire.s :
Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines (CRSH) - Savoir