摘要：Purpose: To understand the awareness among parents of toddlers on the impact of increased screen time on language and communication development. Method: A screen time awareness questionnaire was developed. 200 Malayalam speaking parents of toddlers participated in the study. The Screen time awareness questionnaire was sent to the parents via google forms. Results: 88.5% reported that they were aware of the impact of increased screen time. Among the specified impacts, vision problems stand first and the least reported problem was speech delay. 67% believed that children will start speaking by watching screen. 84% believed that increased screen time leads to attention problem. 93.8% believed that screen time has to be restricted but 56% were not aware of any guidelines set. Conclusion: Increased screen time has detrimental effects on children’s language and other cognitive development including delayed language development, poor social skills, reduced attention, etc. Even when many parents are aware of the impact of increased screen time, misunderstandings persist and are not aware of the guidelines on screen time restriction. With improved awareness, screen time in young children can be limited thereby increasing the parent child interaction and play time which in turn lessens the detrimental effects of screen time on communication development.
关键词：Screen time;toddlers;Awareness;language and communication development
