There are many negative messages about media, and how viewing and interacting with it might harm your child.
But children can also benefit from media. The benefits depend on how old your child is, and what kind and quality of media your child is using.
For children under two years, we don’t know of any benefits from any media.
But for children aged 2-8 years, carefully chosen TV programs, movies, apps and computer games offer many developmental and social benefits. These can have even more value through middle and later childhood. Also, social networking sites can have social benefits for teenagers.
How media can benefit children
For younger children, the developmental benefits of media include developing:
literacy skills – for example, learning letters of the alphabet through programs such as Play School and Sesame Street, or through educational computer games and apps like Teach Your Monster to Read
numeracy skills – for example, learning to count or identify shapes through programs including Sesame Street and Play School
social skills – for example, learning cooperation by watching TV programs and using computer games and apps like Toca’s Tea Party, and websites such as ABC for Kids, which show cooperative and helping behaviour.