Madigan, Browne, Racine, 2019

Paste quoted text from the Methods section of the article on the next line. Do not include quotation marks or a bullet mark:

Participants included mothers and children from the All Our Families study, a large, prospective pregnancy cohort of 3388 mothers and children from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Mothers were followed up at 34 to 36 weeks’ gestation and when their child was aged 4,12,24,36,and 60 months.

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This study followed a large group of mothers and their children over many years. The researchers also checked in with the families during pregnancy, through the time the children were 5 years old.

• Paste quoted text from the Introduction of the article on the next line. Do not include quotation marks:

By school entry, 1 in 4 children shows deficits and delays in developmental outcomes such as language,communication, motor skills, and/or socioemotional health. Approximately 98% of US children aged 0 to 8 years live in a home with an internet connected device and,on average, spend over 2 hours a day on screens.

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Lots of children have delays in development before they start school. Screen time is everywhere these days and it is very hard to avoid digital media. Children spend usually 2 or more hours daily using screens which can delay their development.

• Paste quoted text from the Results section in the article on the next line. Do not include quotation marks:

Children were viewing screens a mean (SD) of 17.09 (11.99) (median,15) hours per week at 24 months, 24.99 (12.97) (median,23) hours per week at 36 months, and 10.85 (5.33) (median,10.5) hours per week at 60 months.

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This translates to toddlers are watching about 17 hours per week of screen time at age 2. 25 hours per week by age 3 and around 11 hours per week at age 5. This means there is a change in the amount of screen time as they got older.

• Paste quoted text from the Discussion section of the article on the next line. Do not include quotation marks:

Screen time is common in the lives of modern families. Moreover,it is on the rise as technology becomes increasingly integrated across all domains of life. 

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They’re stating that screen time is very normal in current world family life. Since technology is everywhere, it almost cant be avoided and kids are spending more time with screens than in the past.

In my opinion, researchers should look at how different kinds of screen time can affect children’s brains. For example, how can the same amount of screen time affect children’s development when watching shows vs. using screen time with educational purposes. They could also research how parents’ involvement while children are using screen time can help out with their development tests/routine check ins.

The most difficult part of this paper was understanding the cross-lagged panel model that they used. At first glance, this looked very confusing and I’m sure someone with a statistical background could help with understanding this better.