Children: Dangers of Screen Time

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord, with his very extensive knowledge, makes two important points. First, when we are talking about the impact of screen time we need to involve young people in describing and thinking about where there should be controls and what the alternatives are. Secondly, to go back to my point about screen time displacing other activity, there are fears that screen time displaces appropriate sleep, appropriate physical activity and, sometimes, as the noble Lord has rightly said, the interesting conversations that we are able to have with our colleagues that I am so much looking forward to now that we have returned from the Summer Recess.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it appears that mobile phones have replaced dummies, with children using them at a very early age? Do we not need to get across to parents that this is not a good idea, given that we know that young children’s brains are developing faster than at any other time in their lives?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

This is precisely why advice is provided by the Government—for example, through the Chief Medical Officer; by ParentZone through videos that it has produced specifically to focus on screen time, with practical advice to parents on how to set boundaries; and the early years guidance that I was talking about that links to the World Health Organization guidance, which, as the noble Lord says, identifies that there is really very little benefit, particularly from sedentary use of screen time, for very small children. I hope all those things will support parents in making the appropriate decisions to support their children in doing things other than simply looking at screens.