• Posted April 8, 2026

Preschoolers' Solitary Screen Time Could Mean Behavior Problems, Language Difficulties Later On

Allowing a screen to babysit your preschool child could blunt their intellectual and emotional development, a new study says.

Preschool and kindergarten kids with up to a half-hour daily of unsupervised screen time wind up with poorer communication skills and a lower vocabulary, researchers found.

In turn, these language problems contribute to later conduct problems and emotional issues, researchers report in the journal Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

“Adults tend to think of screens as pleasant distractions and may use them as convenient babysitters,” said lead researcher Molly Selover, a doctoral student in psychology at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

“But for preschool children with language vulnerabilities, unsupervised screen time is not benign – it can be an active barrier to well-being,” Selover added in a news release.

In the United States, about half of young children spend more than two hours a day on screens during the week, with even higher use on weekends, researchers said in background notes.

For the study, researchers tracked 546 4- and 5-year-olds attending 24 childcare centers in 13 cities in Denmark.

Researchers compared the amount of time children spent with solitary screen time against teachers’ assessments of their language abilities and adjustment difficulties.

Kids who averaged 10 to 30 minutes of solitary screen time a day tended to have worse language skills and were more apt to have problems with their conduct and emotions, the study found.

The time children spend alone with a screen costs them, said senior researcher Brett Laursen, a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University.

“Children have a finite number of free time hours in a day,” Laursen said in a news release. “Every hour a child spends alone with a device is an hour they aren’t engaged in social interactions that boost language skills. It is an hour not spent practicing the social and emotional skills required to build friendships.”

The problem? “Screens don’t demand compromise, sharing or dialogue – the exact skills that children with communication difficulties need to practice,” Laursen said.

Young children also pick up language from in-person interactions, researchers said. Video screens simply can’t replace the language exposure and social experience kids gain when they play and engage with peers.

“Young children with limited language skills are already at risk for social and emotional challenges,” Selover said. “There is little reason to expect that screens help children overcome the adaptive challenges posed by oral language problems and many reasons to suspect that they make matters worse.”

The American Psychological Association recommends limiting kids to no more than one hour of screen time per day between 2 and 5 years of age, and that a parent or caregiver participate in that time rather than using the screen as a babysitter, researchers said.

“Electronic media is as an integral component of the home learning environment; many children spend more time with tablets and phones than with toys, books and friends,” Selover said. “Like other home environment risks, solitary screen time poses a unique peril to young children with heightened vulnerabilities.”

The researchers urge parents to carefully scrutinize how their kids are engaging with screens.

“The findings matter because they show that an all-too-common environmental risk – elevated solitary screen time – can worsen behavioral and conduct challenges for children who face an already difficult developmental path,” Selover said.

More information

The American Psychological Association has more about screen time and emotional problems in kids.

SOURCE: Florida Atlantic University, news release, April 6, 2026