Toddlers With Higher Touchscreen Use Are More Distractable

New research from Birkbeck, University of London, King’s College London and the University of Bath has explored the connection between touchscreen use in toddlers and their ability to focus.

Finding that toddlers who use touchscreen devices are quicker to look at other objects and more distractible. During the pandemic, the use of technology has increased exponentially. Therefore, understanding the impact that technology has on toddlers is increasingly important. “The use of smartphones and tablets by babies and toddlers has accelerated rapidly in recent years. The first few years of life are critical for children to learn how to control their attention and ignore distraction, early skills that are known to be important for later academic achievement. There has been growing concern that toddler touchscreen use may negatively impact their developing attention but previously there was no empirical evidence to support this,” says  Lead researcher Professor Tim Smith, from Birkbeck’s Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development.

Professor Smith’s TABLET project was carried out at Birbeck’s centre, where 12-month infants were studied. The toddlers all had varying levels of touchscreen use and were followed for two and a half years. They were to the centre three times, once at 12 months, once at 18 months and they had a final visit at three and a half years of age. Where the toddlers took part in a variety of computer tasks to measure how quickly they looked at distracting objects. Professor Smith says: “We found that infants and toddlers with high touchscreen use were faster to look at objects when they appeared and were less able to ignore distracting objects compared to the low users.” They are yet to discover out whether these findings are a positive sign, that the children can multi-task in the real world, or whether the result is a lack of focus.