A framework for approaching screen time research in early childhood: a RECIPE for success

Abstract

Children’s screen time has long been of interest to researchers and parents alike. Since the rise in electronic and handheld device use over the last two decades, there has been a range of research addressing various screen activities in older cohorts, such as adolescents’ engagement with social media and video games (e.g., Przybylski & Weinstein, 2017). However, fewer studies have explored the influence of screen time and various screen activities in the home on early psychological development (Burns & Gottschalk, 2020; Li et al., 2020). While research on the topic of early screen use has begun to gather pace in the last five years, the existing research on this cohort has produced mixed findings on whether early screen use has benefits, drawbacks, or any influence at all on early psychological development (Kostyrka-Allchorne et al., 2017; Li et al., 2020). In order to make sense of this diversity of research and the complexity of its findings, it is important to recognise that while much screen time research reports on its influence on developmental outcomes, few researchers in this area consider screen time from a developmental or theoretical approach. This, in turn, has an influence on the ability to draw robust theory-driven and evidence-based conclusions on what effect, if any, screen use has on early psychological development. For example, factors such as the screen activity or content mostly being engaged in, the children’s developmental stage, and whether an adult is present during screen time are not always considered by screen use researchers, despite such factors having been shown to matter since some of the earliest developmental writings (e.g., Piaget, 1936; Vygotsky, 1978).