Children: Video Equipment

(asked on 6th October 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of (a) the amount of time children under the age of three spend in front of screens and (b) the effect of that screen time on their development.


Answered by
Robert Goodwill Portrait
Robert Goodwill
This question was answered on 14th October 2017

A large body of research has linked the amount of ‘screen time’ such as watching television, playing computer games, using smartphone apps with negative outcomes for children of all ages. A report by Public Health England (PHE) in 2013 identified links to the amount of screen time and a range of negative health and wellbeing outcomes for children and young people: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sedentary-lifestyles-and-too-much-screen-time-affect-childrens-wellbeing.

Parents have a vital role to play in their child’s development. NHS advice to parents of babies and older children is to reduce their time in front of the screen and encourage them to be active instead. In addition, the Government is supporting parents to provide a rich home learning environment (HLE) for their children. We have just announced that we will use £5 million to trial evidence based HLE support programmes in the North of England, focusing on early language and literacy. This builds on almost £1.7 million awarded by the department in 2017 to voluntary and community sector organisations to work with disadvantaged or deprived communities. This is to encourage the take up of 2-year-olds places and to engage with parents to create a positive HLE, with a focus on early language and literacy.


Reticulating Splines