YouTube Videos May Not be that beneficial for Toddlers: Study

Showing toddlers YouTube videos might keep them occupied, but it will not help them learn new things, a new study shows, adding that toddlers of up to two years can be kept entertained with YouTube clips on smartphones.

"Young children are attracted to smartphones more than other forms of media and there is a need for more techno-behavioural studies on child-smartphone interaction," IANS quoted Savita Yadav from the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology in New Delhi, who is the lead author of the study, as saying.

The study was conducted by observing the behaviour of 55 toddlers between the ages of 6 and 24 months. Observers analysed the toddlers' abilities to interact with touchscreen phones and identify people in videos.

They found that babies were attracted to music at six months and developed an interest in watching videos at 12 months. They also showed an ability to identify their parents in videos at 12 months and themselves by 24 months.

Meanwhile, another study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto and the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto found that putting babies in front of iPads before they turned two impaired their speech development.

By the age of three, infants should be able to communicate in sentences, but those who spent more time on smartphone and handheld devices were found to struggle with communication skills.

"Handheld devices are everywhere these days," said Dr Catherine Birken, staff pediatrician at The Hospital for Sick Children, reported The Telegraph. "While new pediatric guidelines suggest limiting screen time for babies and toddlers, we believe that the use of smartphones and tablets with young children has become quite common.

“This is the first study to report an association between handheld screen time and increased risk of expressive language delay."