Workshop Recap: Screen Time and Development

Presented by Dr. Israel Flores on 12/2/25

By: Susan Chinitz

Dr. Israel Flores, a developmental psychologist with over a decade of experience in researching development, children’s media and early learning, provided a webinar on screen time for infants, toddlers, and preschool-age children. Dr. Flores reviewed the history of guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics which, first, in 1999, cautioned that excessive TV viewing negatively impacts the quantity and quality of human interaction and thus constituted a potential harm for infants and toddlers. By 2011, research evidence on the negative impacts of TV viewing on very young children mounted, resulting in a recommendation that discouraged any screen time, at all, for children under 2 years of age.  

Amplifying the concern about restricting human interaction, researchers also described the Video Deficit Effect, which highlights the fact that children under 2.5 years of age struggle to learn from screens – including new words, spatial information, social cues and other skills – because they process 2-D information differently than they would the same information presented via real life experience, and do not readily transfer what they see on screens to real world situations.

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 In fact, studies show that each additional hour of screen time before age 3 is associated with decreases in vocabulary by preschool, and decreases in reading, math, attention, and short-term memory scores at age 7. However, Dr. Flores affirmed that not all screen time is equal, and that there are now recognized benefits to certain types of screen and technology options. Specifically, in a 2017 study, Meyers, et al., found that toddlers 12-25 months of age engaged actively in social interactions and learned new words via live video chats. High quality, educational TV can boost vocabulary development and school readiness, especially for children from low-income families. Across all screen time exposures, children benefit from the active participation of their caregiving adults; co-viewing by parents significantly increases the benefits of screen content. Guidance resulting from the research Dr. Flores shared suggests that screen time should still be very limited for infants and toddlers, with priority placed on live interaction and face-to-face real world experiences; that parents be selective with content and chose high quality educational programs with rich language, clear learning objectives and opportunities for active learning; and that parents watch and interact with their young child during video time, which promotes children’s social engagement, and helps connect the on-screen content to the real world, making it both more meaningful and useful to the child.