University of Lille, Univ. Lille, ULR 4072-PSITEC-Psychologie: Interactions, Temps, Emotions, Cognition, Lille, France.
School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Acta Paediatr. 2022 Jul;111(7):1383-1389. doi: 10.1111/apa.16314. Epub 2022 Mar 9.
Young children with weaker self-regulation use more digital media, but studies have been limited by parent-reported screen time measures. We examine associations between early childhood executive functioning and objective mobile device usage.
The parents of 368 American children (51.6% male) aged 3-4 years of age completed standardised measures of executive functioning, parenting stress and household chaos. They provided mobile sampling data for 1 week in 2018-2019 and reported how often the children used mobile devices to calm themselves.
The children's mean age was about 3.8 years. A third of the children who were given devices to calm them down had weaker executive functioning in the overall and multivariable models, including working memory, planning and organisation. So did 39.7% of the children who used educational apps. Streaming videos, using age-inappropriate apps and using the mobile device for more than1 h per day were not associated with executive functioning levels. Parenting stress and household chaos did not moderate the associations.
This study confirms previous studies that suggesting that children with weaker overall executive functioning used devices more for calming purposes. It also raises questions about whether children with weaker executive functioning should use educational apps.
自我调节能力较弱的幼儿使用更多的数字媒体，但这些研究受到了家长报告的屏幕时间测量的限制。我们研究了幼儿执行功能与客观移动设备使用之间的关联。
368 名美国儿童（51.6%为男性）的父母完成了执行功能、育儿压力和家庭混乱的标准化测量。他们在 2018-2019 年提供了为期一周的移动设备抽样数据，并报告了孩子使用移动设备自我安抚的频率。
儿童的平均年龄约为 3.8 岁。在整体和多变量模型中，三分之一的被给予设备自我安抚的孩子的执行功能较弱，包括工作记忆、计划和组织能力。使用教育类应用程序的孩子中，有 39.7%也属于这种情况。观看流媒体视频、使用不适合年龄的应用程序以及每天使用移动设备超过 1 小时与执行功能水平均无关联。育儿压力和家庭混乱并没有调节这些关联。
本研究证实了之前的研究结果，即整体执行功能较弱的儿童更倾向于使用设备来自我安抚。这也引发了关于执行功能较弱的儿童是否应该使用教育类应用程序的问题。
