When It Comes to Screen Time, Expert Guidance and Family Realities Diverge

Experts have long recommended infants and toddlers under age 2 avoid digital media use altogether. Most are still getting it anyway // By Emily Tate Sullivan

Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74/Getty Images

For years, the screen time recommendation for children under age 2 has been simple: They shouldn’t have any.

But as surveys of parents have revealed that young children are increasingly exposed to digital media, it’s become clear there’s a disconnect: Families aren’t following the guidance.

Not only do the youngest children in the U.S. have some exposure to screens, many of them are getting screen time daily — and for an average of about an hour each day.

“There’s a huge gap between what the experts say should be happening and what parents report is happening,” noted Kris Perry, executive director of the nonprofit Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development.

Survey data tells us this is true at all ages, but the divide is easiest to measure for babies and toddlers under age 2, for whom any amount of screen time deviates from evidence-based recommendations.

For years, leading organizations focused on child well-being have cautioned that excess screen time could impede healthy development. Research has shown that children under age 2 do not benefit from most types of digital media use, and in some cases, can actually be harmed. Studies have found possible links between screen time and attention deficits, problems with executive functioning, delayed language acquisition, adolescent anxiety, sleep loss and more.

Screen time also typically replaces high-quality, engaging, in-person interactions, which babies and young children need to thrive.

“Every hour a child spends watching a show or an app comes at the expense of time spent doing something else — being physically active, being cared for and played with by a loved one,” said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and author of numerous research publications on screen time in early childhood. “There are developmental costs associated with that. Children that age need laps, not apps, to develop appropriately.”

There is no shortage of anecdotal evidence that very young children are getting screen time. It’s often on display in public spaces, such as restaurants and airplanes.

Common Sense Media, an education nonprofit focused on children’s technology and media use, found in 2024 that children under age 2 were getting an average of 1:03 hours of daily screen time, with more than half of that time spent watching television or videos. By age 2, the group found, 40% of children had their own tablet.

In 2024, caregivers reported that children under 2 years old average one hour and three minutes of daily screen time. (source:The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight, 2025)

In 2024, caregivers reported that by 2 years old, 4 in 10 children have their own tablet. (source: The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight, 2025)

Supreet Mann, director of research at Common Sense, pointed out that “under 2” is a very wide age band; there are massive developmental differences between a 3-month-old baby and a 23-month-old toddler, for example.

Mann believes that the era of personal devices, such as tablets and smartphones, has made short-form videos (think TikTok and YouTube Shorts) more accessible to children, even as these devices are less conducive to co-viewing with a parent or caregiver, a practice that has been woven into expert guidance for years. It’s also harder for caregivers to monitor what a child is seeing and whether autoplay serves them something developmentally inappropriate.

Still, she thinks parents should not live in fear of being scrutinized about how they use screen time with their children.

“We talk about the ‘digital babysitter’ in a way that’s demeaning to parents who need that extra bit of help,” Mann said, noting that some families may turn on a device for a child when they need to make dinner, take a shower or focus on that child’s sibling. “I certainly do think we need to give grace to parents who are using media for adaptive reasons.”

In May 2025, Pew Research Center conducted a study to understand how parents of children under age 13 approach technology use and screen time with their kids. About 82% of parents with children under age 2 said their child ever uses TV, while 38% said that about smartphones.

How Parents Manage Screen Time for Kids, Pew Research Center, 2025

Another 62% of the same population said their child ever watches videos on YouTube, while 35% said their infants and toddlers watch it every day.

How Parents Manage Screen Time for Kids, Pew Research Center, 2025

“One of the most striking things from this study is the finding that screens start young for children today,” said Colleen McClain, senior researcher at Pew and author of the report on family screen time. “And it’s not just occasional use. For some, it’s daily use.”

In focus groups, McClain said, parents expressed a variety of feelings about their use of screens with their children. Some felt judged. Some felt guilty. Others said it was a tool they used to get through the day, to get everything done. Others didn’t think much of it.

“They have other kids. They’re working. They need to keep their sanity,” McClain said, summarizing what she heard in focus groups. “The human element really comes through. These parents are trying to do the best for their kids.”

Both researchers noted that families have to navigate an extremely complex technology environment today, and with minimal guidance or guardrails.

Perry, the executive director of Children and Screens, believes the biggest problem with children’s digital media use has little to do with family dynamics. The real culprit, she said, is the companies creating content for — and marketing to — children. Many parents are almost defenseless against the addictive qualities embedded in children’s media, driven by a business model that profits off children’s time and attention.

For children under age 5, Perry said, “Their brains are under construction.” They cannot resist short-form video, compelling characters, infinite scrolling, unnatural colors and high frame rates (measured by the number of still images that appear in a frame each second).

“Their ability to stop is almost nonexistent,” she said of early learners on devices.

For children age 2 and older, it’s important to reduce time on screens, and to choose high-quality programming if possible, Perry added. She identified four quality markers for children’s media.

First, it should promote active engagement. Second, it should avoid distracting ads and gaming features. Third, it needs to connect the child’s learning with real-world experiences. And finally, it should encourage social interaction.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was an excellent example of that, Perry said. But for the most part, the shows and apps families are turning to today are not hitting any of those criteria, she said. And some advocates fear that cuts to public media funding could make it harder to produce quality children’s programming with those characteristics.

“What’s being pushed out there is fast-paced, loud, stimulating, full of ads and not educational,” she said. “We know what the standard is, but it’s often not being met.”

For the last decade, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has been the “gold standard” for families on how to use screens with their children, Perry said.

In 2016, the AAP released a policy advising that children under age 2 avoid screens altogether, with the exception of video chatting with family members. The World Health Organization and other groups have recommended a similar approach.

But the AAP, just last month, released updated guidance around “digital ecosystems,” which encompasses all digital media a child may encounter, from smartphones, tablets and TVs to apps, video games and AI. The new policy statement, which replaces prior recommendations, does not include duration-based screen time limits.

Dr. Tiffany Munzer, a developmental behavioral pediatrician at the University of Michigan and lead author of the new AAP policy, said the guidance reflects a more comprehensive body of research and evidence that looks at not just how digital media affects children, but also at factors such as the design embedded into those technologies and a family’s psychosocial context.

For example, if a child lives in a neighborhood where they cannot safely play outside, the use of digital media for entertainment is perhaps a safer alternative. If a family cannot access child care, “some families may need to use digital media to just get some work done at home,” Munzer said.

“Instead of thinking of it as a screen time limit, per se, we thought about it as boundaries for families to set,” Munzer said, referring to the group that drafted the policy. “Every family is different.”

The new policy statement contains nuances and gray areas, putting the onus on families — many of whom are giving their children screens because they already feel overwhelmed — to sit down, read it, digest it and decide how they want to apply it to their own lives. It’s impractical to expect most caregivers to do that.

“I think when you give a clear, black-and-white recommendation, it’s so much easier to file that away in your brain, instead of having all these messages,” Munzer said. She recommended that families who are seeking specific, actionable guidance around screen time talk to their child’s pediatrician about it or reference the AAP’s screen time toolkit.

As for the use of digital media with children under 2, even though the new AAP policy statement doesn’t explicitly state that it should be avoided, that’s still the underlying message.

“Infants under 18 months struggle to transfer information from a screen to the real world because of immature cognitive processing,” one part of the statement reads. Asked to elaborate, Munzer acknowledged that research is still pretty clear about infants and screens.

“Kids who are under 2, it’s just harder — from a cognitive processing standpoint — for them to get a lot out of digital media,” she said. “It’s a lot of flashing lights to them. It’s hard to transfer to real life.”

No one disputes that parents and caregivers today are juggling many responsibilities. And screens are so easy to turn to, always right there in a parent’s pocket, with an engrossing video just a few taps away.

In interviews, researchers and early educators alike urged parents to find alternatives. Even if the result is less screen time, rather than none, that’s a win, they said.

The use of digital tools to distract children when they’re bored or to calm them down when they’re upset is denying them an opportunity to build essential life skills, said Dr. Carol Wilkinson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School who was involved in a study about the effects of screen time during infancy.

“A lot of the skills kids need … come out of the practice of kids being frustrated,” Wilkinson said, noting the way many parents will pull out a device when a child is throwing a tantrum. “Unfortunately, it’s something parents don’t always know how to handle or have time and space to support. We now have this thing that is easy and available that somehow seems to miraculously work every time. In many ways, it’s a missed opportunity for kids practicing things like behavioral regulation.”

Perry, of Children and Screens, made a similar point: “That very phenomenon of learning to be calm and learning to distract yourself are such foundational pieces of our development that parents choosing a screen for that reason are postponing or even delaying their ability to do that.”

Wilkinson also wondered if maybe young parents today have forgotten how to play — or at least have lost sight of the magic of play.

“If parents don’t know the value of a giggle, the value of peek-a-boo, the value of singing, the value of raspberries — if they don’t know that’s going to grow their child’s brain more than Bluey does,” Wilkinson said, then they may not realize what they’re missing out on when they hand their child a phone or tablet or place them in front of a TV.

Robyn Zapien, director of Livermore Playschool in Livermore, California, said she doesn’t want to shame families who use screens with their young children at home, but she knows enough not to use them in her early learning program.

“Young children under 5 years old really need the interaction of their parents, siblings, friends and peers. They don’t need the interaction of something digital on a screen,” Zapien shared. “They need to know how to make real connections, how to express real feelings, and what it’s like in the real world — not just the virtual world they’re watching.”