Children’s Research Digest Growing up in the Digital Environment

January 2020

* Correspondences to: chloe.beatty@mic.ul.ie

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Screen-Time and Non-Verbal Reasoning in Early Childhood: Evidence from

the Growing Up in Ireland Study

Chloé Beatty* and Suzanne Egan, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick

Introduction

For young children, television has become increasingly rivalled by household digital devices,

such as smartphones and tablets (Rideout, 2013). Due to the more child-friendly experience

that tablets provide in comparison to traditional computers, they are becoming a popular

form of learning for pre-schoolers, in both home and childcare settings (Marsh et al., 2015).

This is resulting in young children engaging in a range of screen activities (e.g., educational

games, movies, video games), and yet, very little research has been conducted on the

impact of these various activities on early cognitive development (Kabali et al., 2015;

McClure, Chentsova-Dutton, Barr, Holochwost, and Parrott, 2015; Radesky, Schumacher and

Zuckerman, 2015). To date, research has mostly reported on the impact of the amount of

screen time on cognitive development, rather than the type of activities being engaged in

during screen use. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the effect of both screen

time and screen activity on cognitive development, drawing on data from a nationally

representative sample in the Growing Up in Ireland study (The Economic and Social

Research Institute, 2015). The study also aims to assess an under researched area of early

cognitive development in the screen time literature, reasoning ability.

Screen Time and Reasoning

Previous research investigating the impact of screen time on cognitive development in early

childhood has focused on a number of aspects of development such as attention, reading

comprehension, and language (e.g., Zimmerman, Christakis and Meltzoff, 2007; Barr,

Lauricella, Zack and Calvert, 2010; Pempek, Demers, Hanson, Kirkorian and Anderson, 2011;

Beatty & Egan, 2020

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Beatty and Egan, 2018). Findings from these studies have been mixed. For example, some

studies have found that television exposure for over an hour per day causes a decrement in

children’s vocabulary (e.g., Zimmerman and Christakis, 2005). In contrast, other studies have

suggested that television viewing can enhance vocabulary development as long as the

content is age-appropriate (Linebarger and Walker, 2005), a parent is present (Lavigne,

Hanson and Anderson, 2015), and the child does not have prolonged screen exposure

(Parkes, Sweeting, Wight and Henderson, 2013). These findings highlight the importance of

considering different aspects of screen use, such as time and activity, which may play a role

in cognitive development. However, relatively little is known about the impact of screen use

on reasoning ability in early childhood.

Reasoning ability is an important aspect of early cognitive development (Piaget, 1936). It

allows children to solve problems, learn from their environment and grasp the concept of

cause and effect. An example of this in early childhood is figuring out “If I push a button on a

pop-up toy, then I will see a figure pop-up” (Lerner and Ciervo, 2003). In a study with older

children (aged fourteen), internet and mobile phone use was negatively associated with

reasoning ability and overall cognitive performance (Adelantado-Renau, Diez-Fernandez,

Beltran-Valls, Soriano-Maldonado and Moliner-Urdiales, 2018). Interestingly, this study also

reported no association between TV and video games and reasoning ability. In contrast,

O’Connell (2018) found positive correlations between screen use and non-verbal reasoning

in thirteen-year-olds. The authors of both studies did, however, note that the effect sizes

observed in these studies were small.

Similar to the findings relating to the impact of screen time and other aspects of cognitive

development, the findings on reasoning ability and older children are also mixed and

highlight the difficulties with drawing conclusions from screen time research. To date, there

has been little research published examining screen use and reasoning in early childhood,

particularly using a large, nationally representative, child cohort. Therefore, the aim of this

study is to explore the effect that daily screen time and various screen activities have on

young children’s reasoning ability at age five years, drawing on data from the Growing Up in

Ireland (GUI) study.

Beatty & Egan, 2020

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Methodology and Data

The data for this study were drawn from 9,001 five-year-olds and their families in the GUI

sample (Wave 3), accessed through the Irish Social Science Data Archive (ISSDA)1. Face-to-

face assessments and interviews with the study children and their parents were conducted

by a trained interviewer during visits to the household. The children’s non-verbal reasoning

ability was assessed using the ‘Picture Similarities’ task, adopted from the British Abilities

Scale (BASII; Elliott, Smith and McCullough, 1997).

The Picture Similarities task measures non-verbal reasoning ability and problem-solving

skills, by showing a row of four pictures and asking the child to then identify and select a

further congruent picture that best matches the set. It allows the child to solve non-verbal

problems by identifying key features in pictures and attaching meaning to pictures. Children

gain one point for each correct response, and ability scores (converted from raw scores)

range between 10 and 119 - where higher scores are associated with higher non-verbal

reasoning ability.

Parents were asked to provide information on their children’s daily activities including the

screen activity that they mostly engaged in (educational games, video games, TV/video

watching, or a mix of all activities) and their average amount of daily screen time (between

one and two hours, between two and three hours, or more than three hours). The relevant

data was then assessed to explore the impact screen use has on children’s reasoning ability.

Results

The majority of five-year-olds engaged in between one and two hours of daily screen time,

and a mix of all activities (see Table 1), as also reported by Beatty and Egan (2018) and

Murray, McNamara, Williams and Smyth (2019). Non-verbal reasoning scores in the five-

year-olds ranged between a minimum score of 10 and a maximum score of 119 (Mean score

= 86.59, Standard Deviation = 11.75).

1 Growing up in Ireland Infant Cohort Wave 3 - 5 year (2013) dataset can be accessed through the Irish

Social Science Data Archive. URL http://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/growingupinirelandgui/

Beatty & Egan, 2020

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Screen Time Mean

Score

Standard

Deviation

Confidence

Interval (95%)

% of

Children

Number of

Children

Lower Upper

No screen time 87.91 12.39 86.28 89.54 2.67 238

Between one and two hours 87.08 11.47 86.75 87.40 56.57 5042

Between two and three

hours

86.45 11.79 86.00 86.90 27.81 2478

More than three hours 84.91 12.61 84.23 85.59 12.95 1154

Screen Activity

Educational games 83.97 12.90 82.02 85.99 1.68 146

Video games 85.70 12.09 84.31 87.09 2.85 247

TV/Video watching 85.90 11.50 85.50 86.30 37.32 3237

Mix of All 87.15 11.82 86.82 87.48 58.15 5044

Table 1. Mean Non-Verbal Reasoning Scores in each Screen Time and Activity Category

There was a significant association between the amount of screen time per day and the type

of activity children mainly engaged in, χ2 (6, N = 8674) = 161.37, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .096.

Approximately two thirds of children that mainly play educational games (66.4%) or watch

TV/videos (65.7%) have between one and two hours of screen time per day (see Table 2

below). In contrast, there are a smaller percentage of children engaged in between one and

two hours of screen time per day who mainly engage in video games (60.3%), or a mix of

activities (52.9%). Of those that engage in a mix of screen activities, one in six children do so

for more than 3 hours per day (16.3%). This rate is higher than for children engaging in

mainly a single type of screen activity (e.g., playing educational games: 10% or 1 in 10

children do this for over 3 hours per day; see Table 2).

Beatty & Egan, 2020

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Between one

and two hours

Between two and

three hours

Three or more

hours Total

Educational Games 66.4% (97) 23.3% (34) 10.3% (15) 100% (146)

Video Games 60.3% (149) 29.2% (72) 10.5% (26) 100% (247)

TV/Video Watching 65.7% (2126) 25.4% (821) 8.9% (290) 100% (3237)

Mix of Activities 52.9% (2670) 30.8% (1551) 16.3% (823) 100% (5044)

Table 2. Percentage (and Number) of Children Engaged in each Screen Activity for the

Different Time Categories

Statistical analyses were conducted to assess if screen time and screen activity had a

significant impact on non-verbal reasoning ability (See Figure 1). The 3x4 between-subjects

ANOVA analysis indicated that the two aspects of screen use (activity and time) did not

interact to have an effect on non-verbal reasoning scores, F(6,8662) = 1.30, p = .253, ηp2 =

.001. However, there were significant main effects of both screen activity, F(3,8662) = 21.84,

p < .001, ηp2 = .005, and of screen time, F(2,8662) = 13.70, p < .001, ηp

2 = .005, on the

reasoning scores, although the effect sizes were small.

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Figure 1. Average non-verbal reasoning scores for each type of screen activity across three

categories of screen time

Examining the effect of screen time indicated that children who engaged in more than three

hours of screen time a day scored significantly lower in the reasoning task than those in any

other time category, all p’s < .001 (see Table 1 and Figure 2). There was no significant

difference in non-verbal reasoning scores between those in the one to two hours and the

two to three hours categories, p = .086.

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Figure 2. Average non-verbal reasoning scores for each screen time category (Error Bars =

95% Confidence Intervals, as per Table 1).

Examining the effect of screen activity showed that children who mostly engaged in a mix of

all activities have significantly higher reasoning ability scores than those who mostly

engaged in educational games, p = .007, or TV/video watching, p < .001, but not video

games, p = .282 (see Table 1 and Figure 3).

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Figure 3. Average non-verbal reasoning scores of children for each activity category (Error

Bars = 95% Confidence Intervals, as per Table 1).

Discussion

The findings from this study indicate that both screen time and screen activities have an

effect on non-verbal reasoning scores in five-year-old children. Children who engaged in a

mix of screen activities had significantly higher scores than those who engaged mainly in

educational games or TV/video watching. However, children who engaged in over three

hours of screen time per day, regardless of the type of screen activity, had significantly

lower non-verbal reasoning scores than those who had less than three hours per day of

screen time. However, it is worth noting that the majority of 5-year-olds engaged in under

two hours of daily screen time (55%), with the most popular screen activity being a mix of all

activities (56%). These findings indicate that many Irish children already engage in screen

use associated with the highest reasoning ability scores in this study.

While the results suggest that screen use has an impact on non-verbal reasoning scores, the

small effect sizes reported in the ANOVA results suggest that screen use has a relatively

minor role to play in this aspect of cognitive development. These small effect sizes are

Beatty & Egan, 2020

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consistent with previous research with older children (e.g. Adelantado-Renau, et al., 2018;

O’Connell, 2018). Due to the small numbers in some of the screen use groups (e.g. video

games and educational games) there was high variability in reasoning scores for these

groups (e.g., see confidence intervals for scores as indicated in Figure 3). Caution is

therefore advised in considering the impact of games on reasoning scores, as the number of

children who played games in this study may not be representative of all children. More

research is warranted before drawing conclusions regarding the role of on-screen games in

the development of non-verbal reasoning ability.

The findings in this study highlight the importance of considering the impact of both the

amount of screen time and the type of activity when investigating the impact of screens on

cognitive development. Using a nationally representative sample, this is the first study to

investigate this topic. Future research should continue to explore screen use in large child

cohort studies to provide a nuanced understanding of the impact, or lack thereof, that

screens have on well-being and development in early childhood. These findings may also

have implications for both parents and policymakers when considering the amount and type

of appropriate screen use to support healthy development in young children.

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Authors

Chloé Beatty is currently a PhD researcher in the Department of Psychology in Mary

Immaculate College (MIC), Limerick. She graduated with a B.Sc in Applied Psychology from

the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology. Her research places a particular emphasis on

screen content and activities, and their impact on the socio-emotional and cognitive

development of children under the age of 6 years. She is also a member of the Cognition,

Development and Learning Research Lab in MIC.

Dr Suzanne Egan is a researcher and lecturer in the Department of Psychology in Mary

Immaculate College (MIC), Limerick. She graduated with a PhD in Psychology from Trinity

College Dublin. Her main research interests lie in the area of social cognition and cognitive

development. Her research examines the processes involved in imagination, thinking and

reasoning and the factors that support cognitive development in young children. She is the

Director of the Cognition, Development and Learning Research Lab in MIC.