More than 150 British doctors and specialists in paediatrics, ophthalmology, audiology and speech and language have called for health standards governing the use of educational technology in schools, warning that digital homework could add unnecessary hours to the time children spend in front of screens and compound its effects on their health.
Doctors call for health standards for school technology
The signatories said in a letter reported by The Independent that digital devices and platforms had entered classrooms and homework without adequate assessment of the consequences of their continuous use. Their concerns are not limited to eye health: they also warned that linguistic and social interaction could be affected, particularly among younger children.
The warning coincided with the findings of a wide-ranging scientific review published in JAMA Network Open, which collected data from 45 studies involving 335,524 people, with an average age of about 9. The screens examined in the studies included smartphones, tablets, computers, video games and television.
The researchers found an association between each additional hour children spent in front of digital screens daily and a 21 per cent increase in the odds of developing short-sightedness. The rise in the odds was more pronounced when daily use ranged from one to 4 hours.
Low certainty of evidence does not eliminate the risks of use
But the findings do not prove that screen use directly causes short-sightedness, as the researchers rated the overall certainty of the evidence as “low” because of the substantial differences among the included studies. Nevertheless, the review supports earlier evidence linking short-sightedness to frequent activities that require the eyes to focus at close range, as well as to the limited time children spend outdoors.
Scientific estimates suggest that about half the world’s population could have short-sightedness by 2050. The onset of the condition at a younger age raises concerns about a higher risk later of more serious problems, including retinal detachment, glaucoma and macular degeneration.
In terms of language development, a study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that a three-year-old who spent about 3 hours a day in front of a screen might hear around 1,139 fewer words from adults and experience 194 fewer conversational exchanges during the day than a child who used a screen for less time.
A study of 1,878 children aged between 12 and 48 months in 19 countries in Latin America also found an association between increased screen time and declines in some measures of language skills. By contrast, shared reading between children and their parents was associated with better language outcomes.
