Grace Ngozi

11th October 2024

Persuasive Speech

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Have you ever thought about or wondered how much time your child spends watching TV,
playing with a smartphone or enjoying video games? Take a moment and reflect. Do you think
we need to limit screen time for children? Well, I know that is a tough one. I am quite aware that
most parents and caregivers do not think twice when it comes to children and screen time. In
fact, giving a child a family iPad or sitting him or her in front of their favorite cartoon as they
take their meals is not a big deal to parents especially when they know that is the only way to
stop them from crying. Also, at times situations such as busy work schedules or having no time
to console a fussy toddler while doing house chores, makes screen time unavoidable. Regardless
of the situation, please let us get this straight, our children should have limited screen time.
Today I want to talk about the consequences of too much screen time on child development.
Excessive time on screen negatively impacts on children’s cognitive, language, and behavioral
development in the long term. I am going to look into how much is too much screen time, the
effect of too much screen time for our children and their developmental health as well as the
strategies that parents can use to manage and reduce screen time in children.
How much is too much screen time and what does it do to your child’s brain?

As per the chart I have shared, a survey conducted in the U.S revealed that children spend most
of their time on screen-based play weekly. On average, the survey established that kids between
2 and 10 years spent 18.6 hours on screen-based play weekly. Also, a report by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed the average daily hours children spent on screen
based on their ages as follows.
 8-10 years old: 6hrs
 11-14 years old: 9hrs
 15-18 years old: 7 and a half hrs
The data does not include the time children spend on screens while doing school assignments. It
is very evident that children spend too much time on screens and this has proven to have
detrimental impact on their developmental health.
Too much screen time negatively impacts on children’s cognitive development including
problem solving skills and sensorimotor development. Unlike in the 1970s where children
engaged in media from the age of four years, the present era has reported early kids’ exposure to
media from the age of four months. Do you think society is rather moving too fast? Children are
exposed to screens way too early and this approach has significantly delayed their intellectual
development. According to a research published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association Pediatrics to establish the relationship between screen time and delayed
development in children aged 1year, 2years and 4years from a population of 8000 children, a
positive relationship was discovered. The research reported that one-year old children exposed to
over four hours of screen time displayed delays in communication and ability to solve problems
when they reach 2 years and 4 years.
Also, a study conducted in 2018 by the National Institutes of Health revealed that children
exposed to screen time for more than seven hours faced thinning of the cortex of the brain, an
area of the brain associated with critical thinking and reasoning. Excessive screen time can alter
the brain structure and therefore, if children spend most of their time interacting with
smartphones, TV or iPad, which are greatly entertaining, it will be very difficult to involve them
in non-electronic activities. Remember, non-electronic activities such as playing with toys can
instill imagination and creativity thus improving child brain development. Also, children’s
sensorimotor development can also be improved by allowing kids to explore outdoors and
interact with their environment. On the contrary, too much screen time will limit children’s
ability to observe and experience the daily activities they need to engage in to enable them learn
about the world.
Other than cognitive development, how else does too much screen time affect child
development? Too much screen time at an early age negatively impacts on children’s language
development. In the development of language skills, researchers have emphasized the
importance of human interaction especially the frequency and quality of interactions between
children and adults. Nonetheless, it has become alarming that too much screen time is
diminishing the quality and quantity of interactions between parents and their children.
Subsequently this reduction to interaction has led to lesser chances for children to develop and
practice their language abilities. It is quite unfortunate that most of the time when children walk
with their parents or are being pushed in a stroller, they are often using a smartphone or an iPad
and not paying attention to their surroundings. In such an instance, it is very unlikely that they
will learn about the world around them while looking at a smartphone, instead, their ability to
interact with others and develop their language will be significantly affected.
Now, in addition to cognitive and language development challenges, how else can exposing
children to too much screen time affect their wellbeing? Too much screen time negatively
impacts on children’s behavioral. One major behavioral harm caused by too much screen time is
diminished social coping skills. According to research conducted at University of Alberta,
toddlers who spend excessive time watching TV or using devices like smartphones proved to
have underdeveloped social skills. Valerie Carson, a behavioral epidemiologist at the University
of Alberta conducted a research on screen time and sedentary behavior with social skills in 251
children aged between one and four years. Carson established that the more toddlers viewed
screens, the more their social skills deteriorated. In this research, a higher level of screen time
was greatly linked to lower social skills in early childhood. You can agree that it is becoming
more challenging to change these poor social skills among children over time, because most
parents spend less time to interact with their children and thus they fail to monitor screen time.
Having known the effects of too much screen time on children, how then can parents regulate the
amount of time their children spend on screen? Is there a guideline?

Creating awareness to parents can significantly lower screen time. Parents have the responsibility
to limit screen time exposure on their children. Some of the ways they can achieve this is through
setting time limits for devices such as TV, computers or video games. Alternatively, they could
engage in the turn-off TV challenge in which they commit to turn off the TV for a specific
number of days. It is also advisable to keep smartphones, computers and TVs out of children’s
bedroom. Having the screen in a common area within the house can significantly help parents
monitor the amount of time their children spend on the screen.
Employing the above-mentioned strategies can help parents minimize the potentially significant
effects excessive screen time could have on their child.
Today we have determined how much screen time is too much, understood the effects of
excessive screen time on children’s development and the strategies parents can use to mitigate
the effects identified I am here to remind you that excessive time on screen negatively impacts
on children’s cognitive, language, and behavioral development in the long term. I hope with this
knowledge we will become better stewards and be watchful on how much time our children
spend on the screens.
 References
Muppalla, S. K., Vuppalapati, S., Pulliahgaru, A. R., & Sreenivasulu, H. (2023). Effects of
excessive screen time on child development: an updated review and strategies for
management. Cureus, 15(6).
Armstrong, M. (2017, November 1). Infographic: Screen time dominates kid's play. Statista
Daily Data. https://www.statista.com/chart/11651/screen-time-dominates-kids-play/
Brown, M. (2019, June 21). Too much screen time hurts toddlers' social skills, new study
shows. https://www.ualberta.ca/en/folio/2019/06/too-much-screen-time-hurts-toddlers-
social-skills-
Legner, L. (2022, April 22). Kids’ screen time: How much is too much? OSF HealthCare
Blog. https://www.osfhealthcare.org/blog/kids-screen-time-how-much-is-too-much/
Aplesset. (2023, August 24). What does too much screen time do to kids' brains? NewYork-
Presbyterian. https://healthmatters.nyp.org/what-does-too-much-screen-time-do-to-
childrens-brains/