Children’s Research Digest Growing up in the Digital Environment
January 2020
* Correspondences to: [email protected]
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Screen-Time and Non-Verbal Reasoning in Early Childhood: Evidence from
the Growing Up in Ireland Study
Chloé Beatty* and Suzanne Egan, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick
Introduction
For young children, television has become increasingly rivalled by household digital devices,
such as smartphones and tablets (Rideout, 2013). Due to the more child-friendly experience
that tablets provide in comparison to traditional computers, they are becoming a popular
form of learning for pre-schoolers, in both home and childcare settings (Marsh et al., 2015).
This is resulting in young children engaging in a range of screen activities (e.g., educational
games, movies, video games), and yet, very little research has been conducted on the
impact of these various activities on early cognitive development (Kabali et al., 2015;
McClure, Chentsova-Dutton, Barr, Holochwost, and Parrott, 2015; Radesky, Schumacher and
Zuckerman, 2015). To date, research has mostly reported on the impact of the amount of
screen time on cognitive development, rather than the type of activities being engaged in
during screen use. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the effect of both screen
time and screen activity on cognitive development, drawing on data from a nationally
representative sample in the Growing Up in Ireland study (The Economic and Social
Research Institute, 2015). The study also aims to assess an under researched area of early
cognitive development in the screen time literature, reasoning ability.
Screen Time and Reasoning
Previous research investigating the impact of screen time on cognitive development in early
childhood has focused on a number of aspects of development such as attention, reading
comprehension, and language (e.g., Zimmerman, Christakis and Meltzoff, 2007; Barr,
Lauricella, Zack and Calvert, 2010; Pempek, Demers, Hanson, Kirkorian and Anderson, 2011;
Beatty & Egan, 2020
2
Beatty and Egan, 2018). Findings from these studies have been mixed. For example, some
studies have found that television exposure for over an hour per day causes a decrement in
children’s vocabulary (e.g., Zimmerman and Christakis, 2005). In contrast, other studies have
suggested that television viewing can enhance vocabulary development as long as the
content is age-appropriate (Linebarger and Walker, 2005), a parent is present (Lavigne,
Hanson and Anderson, 2015), and the child does not have prolonged screen exposure
(Parkes, Sweeting, Wight and Henderson, 2013). These findings highlight the importance of
considering different aspects of screen use, such as time and activity, which may play a role
in cognitive development. However, relatively little is known about the impact of screen use
on reasoning ability in early childhood.
Reasoning ability is an important aspect of early cognitive development (Piaget, 1936). It
allows children to solve problems, learn from their environment and grasp the concept of
cause and effect. An example of this in early childhood is figuring out “If I push a button on a
pop-up toy, then I will see a figure pop-up” (Lerner and Ciervo, 2003). In a study with older
children (aged fourteen), internet and mobile phone use was negatively associated with
reasoning ability and overall cognitive performance (Adelantado-Renau, Diez-Fernandez,
Beltran-Valls, Soriano-Maldonado and Moliner-Urdiales, 2018). Interestingly, this study also
reported no association between TV and video games and reasoning ability. In contrast,
O’Connell (2018) found positive correlations between screen use and non-verbal reasoning
in thirteen-year-olds. The authors of both studies did, however, note that the effect sizes
observed in these studies were small.
Similar to the findings relating to the impact of screen time and other aspects of cognitive
development, the findings on reasoning ability and older children are also mixed and
highlight the difficulties with drawing conclusions from screen time research. To date, there
has been little research published examining screen use and reasoning in early childhood,
particularly using a large, nationally representative, child cohort. Therefore, the aim of this
study is to explore the effect that daily screen time and various screen activities have on
young children’s reasoning ability at age five years, drawing on data from the Growing Up in
Ireland (GUI) study.
Beatty & Egan, 2020
3
Methodology and Data
The data for this study were drawn from 9,001 five-year-olds and their families in the GUI
sample (Wave 3), accessed through the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA)1. Face-to-
face assessments and interviews with the study children and their parents were conducted
by a trained interviewer during visits to the household. The children’s non-verbal reasoning
ability was assessed using the ‘Picture Similarities’ task, adopted from the British Abilities
Scale (BASII; Elliott, Smith and McCullough, 1997).
The Picture Similarities task measures non-verbal reasoning ability and problem-solving
skills, by showing a row of four pictures and asking the child to then identify and select a
further congruent picture that best matches the set. It allows the child to solve non-verbal
problems by identifying key features in pictures and attaching meaning to pictures. Children
gain one point for each correct response, and ability scores (converted from raw scores)
range between 10 and 119 - where higher scores are associated with higher non-verbal
reasoning ability.
Parents were asked to provide information on their children’s daily activities including the
screen activity that they mostly engaged in (educational games, video games, TV/video
watching, or a mix of all activities) and their average amount of daily screen time (between
one and two hours, between two and three hours, or more than three hours). The relevant
data was then assessed to explore the impact screen use has on children’s reasoning ability.
Results
The majority of five-year-olds engaged in between one and two hours of daily screen time,
and a mix of all activities (see Table 1), as also reported by Beatty and Egan (2018) and
Murray, McNamara, Williams and Smyth (2019). Non-verbal reasoning scores in the five-
year-olds ranged between a minimum score of 10 and a maximum score of 119 (Mean score
= 86.59, Standard Deviation = 11.75).
1 Growing up in Ireland Infant Cohort Wave 3 - 5 year (2013) dataset can be accessed through the Irish
Social Science Data Archive. URL http://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/growingupinirelandgui/
Beatty & Egan, 2020
4
Screen Time Mean
Score
Standard
Deviation
Confidence
Interval (95%)
% of
Children
Number of
Children
Lower Upper
No screen time 87.91 12.39 86.28 89.54 2.67 238
Between one and two hours 87.08 11.47 86.75 87.40 56.57 5042
Between two and three
hours
86.45 11.79 86.00 86.90 27.81 2478
More than three hours 84.91 12.61 84.23 85.59 12.95 1154
Screen Activity
Educational games 83.97 12.90 82.02 85.99 1.68 146
Video games 85.70 12.09 84.31 87.09 2.85 247
TV/Video watching 85.90 11.50 85.50 86.30 37.32 3237
Mix of All 87.15 11.82 86.82 87.48 58.15 5044
Table 1. Mean Non-Verbal Reasoning Scores in each Screen Time and Activity Category
There was a significant association between the amount of screen time per day and the type
of activity children mainly engaged in, χ2 (6, N = 8674) = 161.37, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .096.
Approximately two thirds of children that mainly play educational games (66.4%) or watch
TV/videos (65.7%) have between one and two hours of screen time per day (see Table 2
below). In contrast, there are a smaller percentage of children engaged in between one and
two hours of screen time per day who mainly engage in video games (60.3%), or a mix of
activities (52.9%). Of those that engage in a mix of screen activities, one in six children do so
for more than 3 hours per day (16.3%). This rate is higher than for children engaging in
mainly a single type of screen activity (e.g., playing educational games: 10% or 1 in 10
children do this for over 3 hours per day; see Table 2).
Beatty & Egan, 2020
5
Between one
and two hours
Between two and
three hours
Three or more
hours Total
Educational Games 66.4% (97) 23.3% (34) 10.3% (15) 100% (146)
Video Games 60.3% (149) 29.2% (72) 10.5% (26) 100% (247)
TV/Video Watching 65.7% (2126) 25.4% (821) 8.9% (290) 100% (3237)
Mix of Activities 52.9% (2670) 30.8% (1551) 16.3% (823) 100% (5044)
Table 2. Percentage (and Number) of Children Engaged in each Screen Activity for the
Different Time Categories
Statistical analyses were conducted to assess if screen time and screen activity had a
significant impact on non-verbal reasoning ability (See Figure 1). The 3x4 between-subjects
ANOVA analysis indicated that the two aspects of screen use (activity and time) did not
interact to have an effect on non-verbal reasoning scores, F(6,8662) = 1.30, p = .253, ηp2 =
.001. However, there were significant main effects of both screen activity, F(3,8662) = 21.84,
p < .001, ηp2 = .005, and of screen time, F(2,8662) = 13.70, p < .001, ηp
2 = .005, on the
reasoning scores, although the effect sizes were small.
Beatty & Egan, 2020
6
Figure 1. Average non-verbal reasoning scores for each type of screen activity across three
categories of screen time
Examining the effect of screen time indicated that children who engaged in more than three
hours of screen time a day scored significantly lower in the reasoning task than those in any
other time category, all p’s < .001 (see Table 1 and Figure 2). There was no significant
difference in non-verbal reasoning scores between those in the one to two hours and the
two to three hours categories, p = .086.
Beatty & Egan, 2020
7
Figure 2. Average non-verbal reasoning scores for each screen time category (Error Bars =
95% Confidence Intervals, as per Table 1).
Examining the effect of screen activity showed that children who mostly engaged in a mix of
all activities have significantly higher reasoning ability scores than those who mostly
engaged in educational games, p = .007, or TV/video watching, p < .001, but not video
games, p = .282 (see Table 1 and Figure 3).
Beatty & Egan, 2020
8
Figure 3. Average non-verbal reasoning scores of children for each activity category (Error
Bars = 95% Confidence Intervals, as per Table 1).
Discussion
The findings from this study indicate that both screen time and screen activities have an
effect on non-verbal reasoning scores in five-year-old children. Children who engaged in a
mix of screen activities had significantly higher scores than those who engaged mainly in
educational games or TV/video watching. However, children who engaged in over three
hours of screen time per day, regardless of the type of screen activity, had significantly
lower non-verbal reasoning scores than those who had less than three hours per day of
screen time. However, it is worth noting that the majority of 5-year-olds engaged in under
two hours of daily screen time (55%), with the most popular screen activity being a mix of all
activities (56%). These findings indicate that many Irish children already engage in screen
use associated with the highest reasoning ability scores in this study.
While the results suggest that screen use has an impact on non-verbal reasoning scores, the
small effect sizes reported in the ANOVA results suggest that screen use has a relatively
minor role to play in this aspect of cognitive development. These small effect sizes are
Beatty & Egan, 2020
9
consistent with previous research with older children (e.g. Adelantado-Renau, et al., 2018;
O’Connell, 2018). Due to the small numbers in some of the screen use groups (e.g. video
games and educational games) there was high variability in reasoning scores for these
groups (e.g., see confidence intervals for scores as indicated in Figure 3). Caution is
therefore advised in considering the impact of games on reasoning scores, as the number of
children who played games in this study may not be representative of all children. More
research is warranted before drawing conclusions regarding the role of on-screen games in
the development of non-verbal reasoning ability.
The findings in this study highlight the importance of considering the impact of both the
amount of screen time and the type of activity when investigating the impact of screens on
cognitive development. Using a nationally representative sample, this is the first study to
investigate this topic. Future research should continue to explore screen use in large child
cohort studies to provide a nuanced understanding of the impact, or lack thereof, that
screens have on well-being and development in early childhood. These findings may also
have implications for both parents and policymakers when considering the amount and type
of appropriate screen use to support healthy development in young children.
References
Adelantado-Renau, M., Diez-Fernandez, A., Beltran-Valls, M. R., Soriano-Maldonado, A. and
Moliner-Urdiales, D. (2018) The Effect of Sleep Quality on Academic Performance is
mediated by Internet Use Time: DADOS Study, Journal of Pediatrics, Vol. 18, pp. 30013-
30015.
Aladé, F., Lauricella, A. R., Beaudoin-Ryan, L. and Wartella, E. (2016) Measuring with Murray:
Touchscreen Technology and Preschoolers' STEM Learning, Computers in Human Behavior,
Vol. 62, pp. 433-441.
Barr, R., Lauricella, A., Zack, E. and Calvert, S. L. (2010) Infant and Early Childhood Exposure
to Adult-Directed and Child-Directed Television Programming: Relations with Cognitive Skills
at age Four, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Vol. 56 (1), pp. 21-48.
Beatty & Egan, 2020
10
Beatty, C. and Egan, S. M. (2018) Screen-Time and Vocabulary Development: Evidence from
the Growing Up in Ireland Study, ChildLinks - Children and the Digital Environment, (3),
Dublin, Ireland: Barnardos Ireland.
Elliott, C. D., Smith, P. and McCulloch, K. (1997) British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II):
Technical Manual, Windsor: NFER-Nelson.
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). (2015). Growing up in Ireland Infant
Cohort Wave 3 - 5 years, 2013. [dataset]. Version 1. Irish Social Science Data Archive. SN:
0019-03. http://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/GUIInfant/GUIInfantWave3
Flewitt, R., Messer, D. and Kucirkova, N. (2015) New Directions for Early Literacy in a Digital
Age: The iPad, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Vol. 15 (3), pp. 289-310.
Kabali, H. K., Irigoyen, M. M., Nunez-Davis, R., Budacki, J. G., Mohanty, S. H., Leister, K. P.
and Bonner, R. L. (2015) Exposure and Use of Mobile Media Devices by Young Children,
Pediatrics, Vol. 136 (6), pp. 1044-1050.
Lavigne, H. J., Hanson, K. G. and Anderson, D. R. (2015) The Influence of Television
Coviewing on Parent Language Directed at Toddlers, Journal of Applied Developmental
Psychology, Vol. 36, pp. 1-10.
Linebarger, D. L. and Walker, D. (2005) Infants’ and Toddlers’ Television Viewing and
Language Outcomes, American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 48 (5), pp. 624-645.
Marsh, J., Plowman, L., Yamada-Rice, D., Bishop, J.C., Lahmar, J., Scott, F., Davenport, A.,
Davis, S., French, K., Piras, M. and Thornhill, S. (2015) Exploring Play and Creativity in Pre-
Schoolers’ Use of Apps: Final Project Report, Technology and Play. Retrieved from:
http://www.techandplay.org/Reports/TAP_Final_Report.pdf.
McClure, E. R., Chentsova-Dutton, Y. E., Barr, R. F., Holochwost, S. J. and Parrott, W. G.
(2015) “Facetime Doesn’t Count”: Video Chat as an Exception to Media Restrictions for
Infants and Toddlers, International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, Vol. 6, pp. 1-6.
Beatty & Egan, 2020
11
Murray, A., McNamara, E., Williams, J. and Smyth, E. (2019) Growing Up in Ireland: The Lives
of Five-Year Olds, Dublin, Ireland: Stationery Office.
O'Connell, M. (2018) The Power of Cognitive Ability in Explaining Educational Test
Performance, Relative to Other Ostensible Contenders, Intelligence, Vol. 66, pp. 122-127.
Parkes, A., Sweeting, H., Wight, D. and Henderson, M. (2013) Do Television and Electronic
Games Predict Psychosocial Adjustment? Longitudinal Research Using the UK Millennium
Cohort Study, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Vol. 98 (5), pp. 341-348.
Pempek, T. A., Demers, L. B., Hanson, K. G., Kirkorian, H. L. and Anderson, D. R. (2011) The
Impact of Infant-Directed Videos on Parent–Child Interaction, Journal of Applied
Developmental Psychology, Vol. 32 (1), pp. 10-19.
Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Radesky, J. S., Schumacher, J. and Zuckerman, B. (2015) Mobile and Interactive Media Use
by Young Children: The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown, Pediatrics, Vol. 135 (1), pp. 1-3.
Rideout, V. J. (2013) Zero to eight: Children’s Media Use in America, New York, NY: Common
Sense Media.
Schmiedeler, S., Niklas, F. and Schneider, W. (2014) Symptoms of Attention-Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Home Learning Environment (HLE): Findings from a
Longitudinal Study, European Journal of Psychology Of Education, Vol. 2 (3), pp. 467-482.
Zimmerman, F. J. and Christakis, D. A. (2005) Children’s Television Viewing and Cognitive
Outcomes: A Longitudinal Analysis of National Data, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine, Vol. 159 (7), pp. 619-625.
Zimmerman, F. J., Christakis, D. A. and Meltzoff, A. N. (2007) Associations Between Media
Viewing and Language Development in Children under age 2 years, The Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol. 151 (4), pp. 364-368.
Beatty & Egan, 2020
12
Authors
Chloé Beatty is currently a PhD researcher in the Department of Psychology in Mary
Immaculate College (MIC), Limerick. She graduated with a B.Sc in Applied Psychology from
the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology. Her research places a particular emphasis on
screen content and activities, and their impact on the socio-emotional and cognitive
development of children under the age of 6 years. She is also a member of the Cognition,
Development and Learning Research Lab in MIC.
Dr Suzanne Egan is a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Psychology in Mary
Immaculate College (MIC), Limerick. She graduated with a PhD in Psychology from Trinity
College Dublin. Her main research interests lie in the area of social cognition and cognitive
development. Her research examines the processes involved in imagination, thinking and
reasoning and the factors that support cognitive development in young children. She is the
Director of the Cognition, Development and Learning Research Lab in MIC.