Only one in 20 kids in the United States meets guidelines on sleep, exercise and screen time, and nearly a third are outside recommendations for all three, a new study has found. On average, children aged eight to 11 spent 3.6 hours a day glued to a TV, mobile phone, tablet or computer screen, nearly double the suggested limit of two hours, researchers found. Too little sleep and excess screen time were clearly linked to a drop-off in cognitive skills, such as language ability, memory and task completion, they reported in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. France urges parents not to allow children under three to watch TV, and American paediatricians also favour a total ban on screen time until at least 18 months.
— source theguardian.com | 27 Sep 2018