Screen device usage and its impact on behavioral outcomes of preschool children

In this modern time, screen devices have become an integral but essential part of everyone’s daily life, especially preschoolers are unavoidably getting exposed to screen devices earlier in life and for longer hours. The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) has recommended that children between the ages of 2–5 years should limit their screen time to a maximum of 1 hour per day under the supervision of parents. So considering the scenario, the present study was undertaken to investigate the “Behavioural outcomes of screen device usage by preschool children”. The differential research design and correlational research design was adopted for the study. The sample of the study comprised of 300 children of age 2–5 years, randomly selected from the anganwadi centres and preschools of Roorkee and Bahadrabad blocks of Haridwar district, Uttarakhand. For the data collection, a general information schedule, self-structured screen related questionnaire and Child Behavioral Checklist for 1.5-5 years of children developed by Achenbach and Rescorla, 2000 were used. The data were analyzed by using frequency-percentage, Chi-square test, student ttest, one-way ANOVA, and correlation coefficient. The results revealed that all rural and urban preschoolers had an access to smartphones and televisions. Moreover, device-specific screen time and total screen time of urban children were higher as compared to rural children. Screen time was significantly associated with behavioral outcomes of children. The correlational analysis revealed significant and positive relationship of type of content of exposure (non-educational child-oriented programme and adult-oriented programme) with internalizing and externalizing among children.