A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Joanne Orlando, Western Sydney University Has your child’s screentime increased since COVID? If you were to estimate by how much would you say 20%, 30% or even a 50% increase? A newly released review comparing children’s screentime before and during COVID, shows children’s screentime spiked by a whopping 52% between 2020 and 2022. Increases were [...]
Sumudu Mallawaarachchi, Deakin University and Sharon Horwood, Deakin University From learning numbers to learning how to brush your teeth, it seems there’s a kids’ app for everything. Recent US statistics indicate more than half of toddlers and three-quarters of preschoolers regularly access mobile apps. So it’s no surprise there has been an explosion of options [...]
By Catherine Draper, University of the Witwatersrand It comes as no surprise that children are spending more time watching screens as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents and caregivers in many parts of the world – including South Africa, where I have done research on children’s healthy behaviours – have had a hard time [...]
By Dr Piers Gooding, Dr Rys Farthing and Emily Painter In 2018, a Melbourne high school mistakenly released the personal digital records of hundreds of students. Among the records were details of students’ “mental health conditions, medications, learning and behavioural difficulties”. This was bad enough but globally breaches of privacy like this can be much [...]
By Maria Corkin, University of Auckland The possibility that screen time during early childhood could cause poorer attention later in a child’s life is a major concern for both parents and researchers. Earlier studies have suggested links between preschoolers’ screen time and difficulties with attention. But there is by no means consensus among the research [...]
By Kathryn MacCallum, University of Canterbury and Cheryl Brown, University of Canterbury The pandemic has fundamentally altered every part of our lives, not least the time we spend on digital devices. For young people in particular, the blurred line between recreational and educational screen time presents new challenges we are only beginning to appreciate. Even [...]
“This is just the beginning,” says Associate Professor Sean Cain. He’s talking about a small light sensor device – in prototype – that he believes could revolutionise the mysterious science of sleep, and its effect on the human mind and body. The Monash University “circadian biologist” specifically examines how different kinds of light affect our [...]
Jane Mavoa, University of Melbourne and Marcus Carter, University of Sydney Play is a core part of a healthy childhood, through which children develop social, communication, cognitive and physical skills. Children’s play adapts to its circumstances. Recently children have been incorporating pandemic related themes into their play, such as coronavirus tag, where the point is [...]
It's fairly settled by now that too much screen time isn't good for kids, but for specifics we have to turn to science. A new study from researchers at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center may have filled in some of the blanks, finding that preschool-aged children had lower levels of white matter in their [...]
