To wonder why screens aren’t investigated as a cause of childhood behaviour issues?

[Peony1897]

We now know that screens, and in particular tablets, have really horrific effects on young children and their emotional/social development - in particular speech, regulating anger, sensory issues and how they interact with their peers.

So why is it whenever we see a thread where a small child has some or all of the above issues, and the OP clearly mentions tablet use or ‘all they are interested in is screens’, the answer is nearly always an autism assessment rather than removal of screens?

Genuinely curious as to why such a clear risk factor is never picked up on.

Because for some families, giving their child a screen is the only way to ensure the child can sit for long enough to engage in any kind of social dining experience, where the child might otherwise make noises inappropriate to the setting, run around the restaurant, or display any number of types of behaviours other diners might be offended by.

Giving a child a screen in these situations might be an important opportunity for the child to develop these social skills, over repeated exposure to dining out, or an important opportunity for the wider family to enjoy some time together.

But perhaps these families should just stay home and out of sight?!

I dont think screens are good for kids in general however my ASD/ADHD child once went an entire 10 months with no tv etc and tbh it made no difference (he doesn't watch much now, he would rather be doing lego!)

I do prefer to put on old cartoons if we watch something, less flashy and choppy

Well we're heading into a future dependent on screen time and technology so one might argue that resistance is futile.

As to correlation and causation, our environment is flooded with all sorts of things that could also be contributing to physiological, neurological and psychological changes in the human condition, and illness of course. It may be decades before we can really parse out the cumulative effect of progress, and you can bet your sweet bippy that anything that interferes with profits in any sector will be quietly buried or minimised, unless an expensive solution can be sold to us.

My son had a bog standard computer as a teen, and aside from still gaming as an adult, has largely avoided social media, but he's 30 so kind of missed the intense smartphone peer pressure.

I cannot in all conscience make judgement of today's parents, because parenting has changed so much since the 90s and early 2000s when I was in the thick of it. And I feel for them, and their kids, because life is 100 times more complicated than it was 50 years ago when I was a kid, and so much more pressured and intense in very different ways.

I totally agree with you about screens being damaging to children's development but conflating that with ASD diagnoses grinds my gears because I have an autistic son. He's autistic because that's his genetic make up. It comes with emotional regulation issues for him but it also makes him an extremely intelligent, fascinating, interested little human. Id like to make life easier for him but neither he nor I would want to take his autism away. His brain is amazing. He didn't have access to any device until he was 6 (Minecraft, because his big brother had it then aged 9). Neither my eldest nor my youngest are autistic. Just the middle one. They've all had similar exposure to TV, Minecraft. Etc.

But I do agree kids being silenced with screens is detrimental to their development and their social skills. I do agree that it impacts on behaviour.

This is an absolutely amazing post.

But it turns out that a lot of neurodiversity might actually be situational, not inherent:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/magazine/adhd-medication-treatment-research.html

Archived here:
http://archive.today/br0OU

In which way? Apparently it's a myth screens help them regulate.

A lot of children with asd enjoy gaming with other people as it is structured, with predictable rules and they know the social expectations. It can really help them develop friendships.

This is obviously a different benefit to the parents who feel screens help regulation which I dont know anything about.

I don't think that you really understand the difference between needing to self regulate and just having a tantrum.

A way to self regulation is needed when the child is really overwhelmed with the situation that they are in. They cannot always just leave and they need a way to be able to calm down without annoying everyone else around them and focus on something that is not the background environment that is currently overstimulating them. What other solution do you have for someone who needs to be able to calm down, but cannot escape the environment that they are currently in for whatever reason? People tend to hate shrieky toddlers who run up and down when they are trying to eat. They hate it even more if the person doing that is almost a teenager.

one simple question was society full of perfect individuals who had no behaviour issues before screens and modern technology ? the answer is no. so its not soley down to screens themselves

One issue there is that many parents of ND children only find out that they're ND after their children are diagnosed.

I don't know if I will be diagnosed with anything, but there are definitely things I didn't pick up on because I just thought DS took after me. There were also warning signs I missed because I took them too literally and DS's behaviour didn't match that literal, very narrow interpretation.

spoken like a true follower of star trek with your comment

How does too much screen time cause sensory issues?

I won't deny too much screen time is bad. But there's plenty of older ND teens/young adults out there who didn't have them when they were younger.

DeafLeppard Why are you linking that article as though it is some new finding when it is the opinion of a journalist?

Peony, you are putting words into my mouth - I have never said any study is nonsense. I actually think most of the screen time related studies are very useful. The fact is they present a much less clear, and more nuanced, view than journalism would have you believe, and I find it frustrating when "screens" are being blamed for everything (often by adults who are also spending a lot of time on "screens") when it seems completely obvious to me that such a simple answer is highly unlikely.

Look at any of the criticism of Jonathan Haidt's book as many people have explained this issue far more eloquently than I could.

Are there problems with the way big tech, the media and the internet all compete for our attention, all the time? Absolutely. I think there are things parents need to be aware of about screen time, especially online screen time.

Is it the major cause/contributor to an apparent increase in ND conditions/diagnosis? I find it incredibly unlikely. It seems to me that there are people who are very upset about this rise (which I do not fully understand) and they seem keen to blame it on any random thing whether it is environmental toxins/microplastics, ultra processed food, or an imagined shift in parenting practice/screen time (which is parent blaming in disguise).

However I suspect we are talking past each other because I find it very difficult to understand why there is such hostility to the idea that a large minority might fit under a neurodiversity umbrella, while the responses I get seem to assume that I and others sharing a similar view have some kind of agenda supporting an artificial inflation in numbers of ND and - again - there I'm lost because I don't understand why you think I have that agenda, or who it would benefit if somebody did have that agenda.

What about before all these tablets and phones were about. What do think people did before this. You just took some pencils and colouring books but you might not need them.
Maybe parents don't ever sit down and eat dinner with their children at the table anymore so they don't know how to act when they go to restaurant.

This was a depressing read OP. As the mum of a 4 year old son with high functioning autism, I can't tell you how sad reading these threads makes me feel. There is so much judgement, ignorance and misunderstanding around autism - what it is, how it presents in kids and what causes it. But most people seem to assume it's an excuse for "bad behaviour" or a "socialising problem" or caused by "poor parenting - too much tv". My son was diagnosed at age 3. We didnt have a tv in the house until we bought 1 when he was 3.5 and it has not affected his behaviour at all. There's no difference. It had been fairly obvious to me he had autism from an early age but in the 3 years prior diagnosis I had so many people telling me "he was badly behaved, poorly parented etc". He wasn't. He was autistic. Interestingly we had alot of "behavioural issues" in one school then moved him to a new school with smaller class sizes, more focus on outdoor play and play based learning, focus on inclusively" and his "behavioural issues" at school disappeared. This is because he has autism , not because he was badly behaved. He thrives in quieter, calmer environments. Nothing to do with TV. He has loads of friends- not socially impacted for now and an advanced vocabulary for his age.

YADNBU. I work with young children, and seeing the amount of screen time they are exposed to and the impact this has on them is extremely worrying.

YANBU at all, OP.

There are masses of studies showing associations between severity of ADHD and screen time. This from the summary page of a recent meta-analysis (Screen time and childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analysis - PubMed)
"Based on the current meta-analysis results, our study found a positive correlation between screen time and the risk of ADHD. Excessive screen exposure may significantly contribute to the development of ADHD in children. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce screen time per day in children to prevent the occurrence of ADHD."

There was a post from a primary school teacher earlier in the thread which I agree with entirely. Children are entering preschool/school now having been raised on their iPads. Have a look at the criteria for ADHD per the DSM V. Is it any wonder that children might exhibit these behaviours/symptoms when their brains have been quite literally wired for short term bursts of attention and rapid dopamine reward during the crucial first three years of development, and then they are expected to sit still on a carpet for 20 minutes?

What about some quiet, calming music through headphones? Something with very regular patterns and rhythyms, or just something very soothing?

What would you define as had 'no idea' though? Ime most parents do know there is something going on but when your child is small you are often dismissed, you get told it's normal, they'll grow out of it etc, etc. if I had a pound for every time I heard this about my ds when I questioned asd when he was small id be rich. I suspect my oldest dd also has asd but I never recognised it until others in the family were diagnosed because she was my first child, i had no other children I knew well to compare her to and she presents very subtly. But signs were there long before screens came into her life, now I'm more aware of what asd looks like in young girls I can see with hindsight it was pretty obvious. Also people who are ND themselves but have never been diagnosed or weren't diagnosed until later in life (usually after one of their children are and the pieces start to come together) don't always see the signs because 'the signs' are in fact totally normal in their world. I don't think an asd diagnoses comes as a complete shock to many families at all.

This is a very sobering post and one which I hope gets read widely.

no one is saying ADHD and ASD don’t exist but surely everyone must be able to accept there will be a percentage of children with those diagnoses who wouldn’t have been diagnosed if they’d been raised differently?

the exact percentage is up for debate because literally no one knows but just as there are false negatives there will be false positives.

Hmm I can see you're very interested in anecdata @Peony1897 as long as it's anecdata about children whose screen use pre-dates their diagnosis.

Here's my anecdata: no screens prior to DC's diagnosis (on the pathway age 2 after scoring extraordinarily high on the M-CHAT, diagnosed age 4 by a multi disciplinary team after a number of assessments). Post diagnosis the feeding therapist suggested allowing a screen at meal times to facilitate eating solid food, which we did try. This did enable DC to actually eat.

After that we were back to no screens until DC went to school and homework was set on google classroom, times tables rock stars, mathletics and EdShed. We asked for an adjustment to allow DC to do homework on paper and were flatly refused. DC does now have screen time - less than their peers, more than I'd like - and it makes them no more or less autistic, with no obvious impact either way on attention or behaviour. Sorry.

Colouring books might be enough to keep some children occupied, but not all.

And can you conceive of the possibility that for some families, no matter if they sat down for dinner every night for ten years straight, having a child with significant learning difficulties might mean they're never able to act in a way that would be considered acceptable in a restaurant? Having a screen or a tablet might make the difference between these families getting out occasionally, or not at all.

that won't be a nice compliant assessment and could quite easily be refused/questioned.

Certainly is in our family! Non verbal child and both children severe learning disabilities. I'm not sure we'd be seen in public very often without screens as a back up. Maybe that's half the point - some people don't want to see disabled people out in public acting differently 😬