TORONTO - Children who spend many hours a day glued to the TV or playing computer video games may be harming their ability to concentrate and focus on tasks in school, researchers suggest.
A study by psychologists at Iowa State University found that kids who exceeded the recommended two hours per day of screen time were 1 1/2 to two times more likely to have attention problems in the classroom.
Both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Canadian Paediatric Society recommend that parents limit a child's screen time to one or two hours daily.
"There isn't an exact number of hours when screen time contributes to attention problems, but the AAP recommendation of no more than two hours a day provides a good reference point," said lead author Edward Swing, a psychology doctoral candidate.
"Most children are way above that. In our sample, children's total average time with television and video games is 4.26 hours per day, which is actually low compared to the national average."
Co-author Douglas Gentile, an associate professor of psychology at Iowa State, said research has suggested that the average child in the U.S., and likely in Canada as well, spends many more hours per day with screen-based technology.
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