Screen time of children aged 3 to 9 years

Last updated on 5-12-2024 by Thérésa Lebacq

Why do we study screen time in children?

Screen time is defined as any time spent watching screens, including smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, television, and computers.
High levels of screen time in young children can have negative consequences on their motor and cognitive development, as well as on their social and psychological well-being. For children and adolescents aged 5–17 years, high amounts of screen time may have negative effects on weight, sleep patterns, behaviour problems, anxiety, hyperactivity, attention, self-esteem, and psychosocial health.
For children aged 3 and 4 years, it is recommended that screen time does not exceed 1 hour a day. For children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 years, recreational screen time should be limited to maximum 2 hours a day.

How do we do it?

The screen time of children aged 3 to 9 was assessed using questions from the European ToyBox project (www.toybox-study.eu). Parents or guardians of the participants of this age group were asked the two following questions.
- Approximately how many hours a day does your child spend watching films, videos, series, programmes, etc. in their free time? Whether on television, computer, tablet or smartphone.
- Approximately how many hours a day does your child usually play computer, video games (e.g. Playstation®, Xbox®, GameCube® , etc.), on a tablet, smartphone or other equipment during free time?
These questions were asked separately for weekdays and weekends. Parents or guardians were asked to select one answer among the following options: Never, less than 30 minutes/day, 30 minutes to < 1 hour/day, 1-2 hours/day, 3-4 hours/day, 5-6 hours/day, 7-8 hours/day, 8 hours/day, more than 8 h/day, I don’t know.
Times spent watching television (or films, series on other devices) and playing video games on weekdays and weekends were computed by assigning the mid-point value to each answer option (i.e. 0 assigned to ‘never’, 15 to ‘less than 30 minutes’, 45 to ‘30 minutes to < 1 hour/day’, etc.). Times spent watching television and playing video games were then summed separately for weekdays and weekends. These sums were compared to the guidelines to identify children exceeding the recommended limit per day, separately for weekdays and weekends.
In the 2014-2015 survey, the Toybox questions were also used to assess screen time in children. However, in the 2022-2023 survey, the questions were updated to reflect technological changes, i.e. including smartphones and tablets. These differences can influence the comparison of screen time between both survey years.

Key results

43% of children aged 3 to 4 years have screen time higher than one hour a day on weekdays and 75% on weekend days.

28% of the children aged 5 to 9 years spend more than two hours a day in screen-based activities on weekdays and 61% on weekend days.

Among children aged 5 to 9 years, a higher proportion of boys than girls exceed two hours of daily screen time.

The proportion of children exceeding the recommended maximum duration for screen time is higher among children from families with low-educational levels.