Don't freak out about the latest scary screen time study

There's a new study out about child brain development and screen time. So naturally, there is panic.

The study establishes a correlation between the prevalence of screens in a young child's life, their reading and language skills, and the physical development of their brain as shown on an MRI. Published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, it's called Associations Between Screen-Based Media Use and Brain White Matter Integrity in Preschool-Aged Children.

Specifically, the MRIs showed that children (all ages 3-5) who interact less with screens have more physical development in the connections in the brain that govern language and literacy. Conversely, the brains of children who spend more time with screens showed less developed connections between the neurons that power reading and writing skills. And for the most part, functional tests assessing the abilities of the kid subjects backed up what the MRIs suggested.

"What it really says is that children with more screen exposure tend to have lower skills and measures of structural brain development," Dr. John Hutton, a pediatrics researcher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the study's lead author, told Mashable. "Whether that’s a direct effect of screens, or because screens replace something, is unclear."

Hutton posited that the lowered brain development could be due to screen time replacing activities like reading and screen-free playing that experts know are crucial for this sort of development.

However, outside experts Mashable spoke with were even more cautious about drawing the causal conclusion that screen time leads to underdeveloped brains, whether through screens themselves, or by potentially displacing beneficial childhood activities.

SEE ALSO: New parents are anxious about screen time, but it gets better

"There’s this fetishization around this type of brain science where just the idea that we can see inside people’s brains and what’s happening in there is awesome, and we must be learning something really important," said Emily Oster, a Brown University economist and author of Cribsheet: A data-driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting. "But whether it’s screen time that causes those differences in the brain, or other features of the family, is really not something this study can disentangle."

The study itself draws the modest conclusion that "further study" is needed around the effects of screen time on young children's brain development. Experts agree that it is an interesting jumping off point for an area desperately in need of more research — and provide a word of caution in face of fear and sensationalism.

"This being the first study that looked at brain anatomy differences in young children, and compared it based on their screen media use practices, I thought it would get a lot of press attention," said Dr. Jenny Radesky, a University of Michigan professor of pediatrics who authored the 2016 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) digital media guidelines for young children. "But it has very many limitations, which is why it should be considered to be a preliminary study, a launching point for future research, and in no way evidence of causal relationships."

Research is mounting that screens may not be the best thing for a young child's brain. However, this one study need not cause parents to panic about damaging their children's brains for life if they opt to distract their kids with Sesame Street while cooking dinner. Here's what to keep in mind.

1. The study's measure of screen time may not be the best way to reflect a kid's relationship with screens

Hutton and his co-authors did not determine a child's relationship with screens simply by estimating the amount of time they spent with devices. Instead, it assigned each child a "ScreenQ score": a numeric value that reflects the extent to which a child's household is or is not adhering to the AAP guidelines, based on a survey answered by parents.

That includes whether parents are following the amount of screen time hours recommended for kids (not more than 1 hour per day), as well as other measures like whether parents consume digital media alongside their kids, and whether there are screens in the bedroom. The scores ranged from 1-19 (the lower the score, the more they adhere to the guidelines), and the mean score was 8.6.

"As the first study to look at associations between screen time before kindergarten and measures of structural brain development, it allows us to look at existing guidelines through a new lens," Hutton said.

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However, the author of those guidelines herself is not sure that a numeric score measuring adherence is the best reflection of a child's relationship with screens.

"It’s great that these authors are trying to validate a parent report measure," Radesky said. However, she added "Really that measure is talking about how much a household adheres to this guideline, but we need much more specific measures."

Radesky notes that ScreenQ as a measure hasn't been published or scrutinized in a peer-reviewed journal. Ideally, she said, assessing a child's screen time would include more detailed monitoring and context around the time, content, and circumstances of device viewing sessions.

Overall, ScreenQ could be a good measurement of how well a family is following the AAP guidelines — but doesn't necessarily reflect a child's relationship with screens.

2. The study was small

Imagine trying to get a preschooler to sit still in a loud, scary MRI machine. That's what Hutton and his team were up against — and makes the fact that they included 47 kids in the study impressive.

Given that limitation, Oster agreed that this was a valid sample size for the study — with a caveat.

"Extrapolation is always very challenging," Oster said. "On the one hand, it’s very hard to get kids into MRIs, and the fact that you have all these brain scans is really interesting. It does seem like this is actually quite a good sample size, particularly with kids. At the same time, if you’re interested in the relationship between screen time and outcomes, this is not a very big size for that."

Radesky put it in blunter terms.

"This sample of 47 is in no way generalizable to the rest of U.S. children or families," Radesky said.

3. Other factors could be at play

Overall, the study established a correlation between lower ScreenQ scores, and higher reading/language skills and brain development in the areas that support those skills. However, researchers don't look at this as a smoking gun.

One of the reasons for this is because of external factors, like the child's individual personalities, race, income, and others —most of which the study does not account for.

"The child brings a lot to the table, [depending on] what their temperament and characteristics are," Radesky said.

The study itself shows that this could be the case. All of the researchers Mashable spoke with pointed out that when the study adjusted for household income, the correlation between literacy skills and ScreenQ scores went away.

"The fact that there’s such a strong association between the household income and those scores suggests that there’s a bigger societal issue," said Dr. Signe Bray, who studies child's brain development at the University of Calgary.

4. This expands on a growing body of work-in-progress

Parents are (understandably) searching for a hard-science guidebook on what effects screens will have on their kids. However, this book does not yet exist, which is why studies like Hutton's are valuable.

However, that doesn't mean that one study — with a small sample size, an untested unit of measurement, and that doesn't establish cause — is reason to fear kids' time with screens as a whole. The fact that this study deals with brain imaging just makes it a little scarier, starker — but it doesn't change the message we already know.

"Parents should be mindful of children’s screen time for lot of reasons," Signe said.

"It’s important that parents don’t think, oh my gosh, media causes brain damage," Radesky said. "Everything kids do changes the brain for good or bad. But I don’t want parents so anxious that every little thing they do is going to change their child’s brain. That is the part of intensive parenting that drives us so crazy right now."