The American Academy of Pediatrics

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) continues to be concerned by evidence about the potential harmful effects of media messages and images. On October 28, 2013, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued new recommendations calling on parents to severely limit the time their children spend in front of a screen. These recommendations arise from studies that have largely debunked the myth of “educational” media, especially for children under 2 years of age, and show even in older children a correlation between total hours of screen time and childhood obesity, lack of sleep, school problems, aggression and other behavior issues. So The AAP recommends that parents limit their children’s entertainment screen time to less than one or two hours a day, and discourages screen media exposure of any type for children under 2. It also calls upon parents to create a media use plan, including mealtime and bedtime curfews for media devices, keeping screens out of kids’ bedrooms, and modeling effective “media diets” to teach their children to be selective and healthy in what they consume.