We read with great interest the research article by
Meena, et al. [1] on screen time in children by 15-18 months of age. We
wish to share our survey findings of 109 well children (12-36 months) at
three hospitals in Bangalore between September, 2016 to April, 2017. We
found that the mean (SD) screen time exposure was 120 (96.2) minutes
(range 0-540 min) in this age group, similar to the study by Meena, et
al. [1]. Television (69%), mobile phones (66%), tablet (27.5%)
and laptop (22%) were the most common electronic media used in our
study. We found rhymes (89%) commercial advertisements (62%),
educational videos (36%), and cartoons (20%) constituted majority of the
activities during screen time. Importantly, 73% of the parents used
screen time to help the child in eating, 51% for entertain-ment, and
34.8% as a distraction to give the caregiver some free time. Contrary to
their findings, we found that only 7% of the parents thought screen time
was good for the child. We found that 26% of these children had delay in
speech for their respective ages. An association with speech delay and
screen time has also been reported earlier [2,3].
We agree with the authors that it is the need of the
hour to not only provide Indian guidelines for screen time in toddlers
to parents but also to make them aware of possible adverse effects it
may cause in their toddler’s speech development. We are eagerly waiting
for guidelines of Indian Academy of Pediatrics on screen time for
children to address this important issue, and to communicate these to
parents in addition to practitioners.
Ethics clearance: Institutional Ethics Committee,
Kids Clinic India Pvt Ltd; No. ECR/791/ Inst/ KA/ 2015/RR-18, dated
August 20, 2016.
1. Meena P, Gupta P, Shah D. Screen time in Indian
children by 15-18 months of age. Indian Pediatr. 2020;57:1033-36.
2. Service I-AN. Smartphones, Tablets May Cause
Speech Development Delays in Kids. NDTV Gadgets360Com 2017. Accessed
April 20, 2018. Available from:
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/news/smartphones-tablets-may-cause-speech-development-delays-in-kids-report-1689995
3. Anderson DR, Pempek TA. Television and very young children. Am
Behav Sci. 2005;48:505-22.
