Daily Touchscreen Use of Infants and Toddlers
Christa D. Bourque
Psych210 (D16)
Liberty University
Dr. Oliver
April 10, 2023
1
2
The article, “Daily touchscreen use in infants and toddlers is associated with reduced
sleep and delayed sleep onset”, discusses research conducted to determine whether electronic
devices affect the sleep patterns of infants and toddlers. Researchers administered a questionnaire
to 715 parents of infants and toddlers aged 6 to 36 months to ascertain the relationship between
their use of electronic devices and sleep patterns. According to the article, sleep is essential for
infants’ and toddlers' neurodevelopment and synaptic plasticity. The findings concluded that
touchscreen and television use significantly impacted infants' and toddlers' sleep patterns.
(Cheung et al.).
After reading the article, I realized that the study of human development is a lengthy
endeavor, as it takes many years and a large number of people to gain a thorough comprehension
of the subject, given that we are all uniquely constructed. Cheung (2017) used a saturated path
analysis model with sleep variables (sleep at night, sleep during the day, sleep onset, and
frequency of night awakenings) as correlated dependent outcomes, and tablet use, in addition to a
number of covariates (daily television exposure, age, mother's education, and sex) to conduct this
study.
This assignment taught me that I can highlight and annotate other PDF documents using
Adobe Acrobat, a skill I can apply to future assignments during my remaining two years as a
student, as well as in a professional context.
3
Resource
Cheung, C. H., Bedford, R., Saez De Urabain, I. R., Karmiloff-Smith, A., & Smith, T. J. (2017).
Daily touchscreen use in infants and toddlers is associated with reduced sleep and delayed
sleep onset. Scientific Reports, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46104
