About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

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Healthy sleep is associated with adaptive development and well-being, especially for at-risk children; it supports language development, emotional regulation, and family bonding (Mindell & Williamson, 2017). Children’s sleep is also affected by screen time, and research has shown that higher screen use in children is associated with worse sleep quality. Moreover, higher screen time use in itself has been shown to be associated with lower emotion regulation in children. Sanders et al. (2019) found that passive screen time had a negative effect on various aspects of children’s development (physical, socio-emotional, school achievement). Limited research, however, has investigated how different forms of screen time might be associated with children’s sleep problems and emotion regulation. The present study, therefore, investigated the relations between screen time, sleep problems, and emotion regulation in 3 and 4-year-olds.

We assessed 98 parent-child dyads with children (nfemale = 45) aged 3 or 4 years old (M=3.82, SD =0.55; Asian=2, Black/AA=14, Multiracial=15, White=52, declined to state=15). Screen time was assessed through ancillary items in which parents were asked a few questions about screen use, using a likert scale (0-7, where 0=none, 1=less than 30 minutes, 4 = 2-3 hours, and 7= greater than 5 hours).This scale asked over the past week on average how often did your child do one of the following subscales. In this study, we looked at different measures of screen time:1) on average how often a child sits and watches a TV screen or videos, 2) how often the family has the TV or other screens on in the background, 3) how often the child uses a computer, smartphone or tablet, and 4) if a TV or screen device is available in the child’s bedroom ( rated 1=yes or 0=no), this is a non time subscale. Sleep problems were measured by the Child Sleep Habits Questionnaire (Bonuck et al., 2017). We used the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function - Preschool Version emotional control subscale (Gioia et al., 2003) and the Early Emotion Regulation Behavior Questionnaire emotion reactivity subscale (Perry, 2021) to measure emotion regulation and child behavior outcomes.

As shown in Table 1, computer/tablet use and background TV time are significantly correlated with TV watching time. Computer/tablet use is also associated with background TV time and having access to a TV or device in their bedroom . Sleep problems are significantly correlated with TV/devices in the bedroom. Emotional control problems are significantly correlated with more TV watching time and background TV time. More problems with emotional reactivity are significantly correlated with background TV time and problems with emotional control.

Our study highlights the associations of screen time and related factors to both sleep problems and emotional control difficulties in young children. These findings are correlational and cross-sectional, but future research should investigate whether screen time leads to more sleep problems and emotional control difficulties, which would have implications for interventions.

Author information

Author	Role
Madalyn Mosallam, Eastern Michigan University	Presenting author
Jamie Lawler, Professor	Non-presenting author
Angela Staples, Professor	Non-presenting author
Maitri Jain, Doctoral student	Non-presenting author

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