Daily Living Skills Are Impacted by Screen Time

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Daily living skills aren’t likely to be terminology parents use when discussing their children. However, daily living skills may be what they’re talking about when they lament their children's deficits.

Daily living skills refer to a wide range of personal self-care activities across home, school, work, leisure, community settings, and health.

I had a conversation with a mother about the silent ways of her teenage children when they visited a medical office for medical concerns. I wondered why a teen would expect a parent to answer a doctor's question posed directly to them about where something hurt or how long they have had pain.

Given the cultural shifts in our world that potentially impact children and emerging adults, it's interesting to know how they have been neurodevelopmentally affected. Some teens or emerging adults remain silent and look to their parents to answer such questions. This is an example of less-than-optimal communication; communication is measured in children, along with their socialization and daily living skills, as neurodevelopmental outcomes.

I recently asked my class of emerging adult college students how many knew how to cook a meal. Out of a group of 25, seven raised their hands. It was once common for humans to learn cooking skills through real-world social observation or tutorials from another person. My students’ reduced cooking know-how may have relevance to new scientific evidence that concluded that a factor that may begin to be significant as early as the toddler stage influences the diminishment of daily living skills (Sugiyama et al., 2023).

Outside Play Time

Culture today has shifted to a normative reduction in time spent outside to play for young children relative to the prevalence of the same behavior in previous decades. Considering that outside play was once a normative part of children’s physical, cognitive, and social development versus now being relatively infrequent in many contexts, we should have anticipated long-term human neurodevelopmental consequences.

Communication, daily living skills, and socialization were measured in 885 four-year-old children (Sugiyama et al., 2023). The researchers’ methods included collecting information about the four-year-olds’ frequency of outdoor play when they were two-years-eight-months old. Higher screen time at age two was directly related to poorer communication later at age four. Higher screen time at age two was associated with lower daily living skills in the four-year-olds. However, for children who played outside at higher frequency when they were two-years-eight-months old, the research team found that the outside play time acted as a protective buffer against the negative neurodevelopmental influence of higher screen time.

Evidence-Based Takeaways

• More than one hour per day of screen time for a two-year-old is considered a long time.
• Parents should aim to have their toddlers and preschoolers get outside to play six or seven days per week.
• Higher screen time reduces communication skills and socialization skills.
• Higher screen time is related to lower daily living skills, but increased outside play for children can protect against having lowered daily living skills.

The research presented here was based on data from children. However, digital natives are labeled as the youngest Millennials, Generation Alphas, and Generation Zs who have grown up in the information age. As such, their brains allow them to easily consume digital information and stimuli through electronic devices and platforms. So even today’s college students’ socialization, communication, and daily living skills have likely been affected by excessive screen time usage.

Among teens and emerging adults who struggle with daily living skills, the research suggests that how much they played outside as kids may be related to their challenges when expected to carry out necessary daily living skills.