Digital media exposure and young children's socio-emotional development: A meta-analysis

Digital media has the potential to disrupt or support children’s socio-emotional development. The aim of this meta-analysis was to clarify the inconsistencies in research surrounding early-childhood digital media exposure and the association with children’s socio-emotional outcomes. We identified 84 correlational and experimental studies investigating 61,865 neurotypical 0–6-year-old children. For the 72 correlational studies, there was a small but significant positive association between children’s daily exposure to media and their socio-emotional development, with a stronger association for socio-emotional difficulties, suggesting that more exposure was associated with worse socio-emotional outcomes. For the 13 experimental studies, there was no significant association. However, this meta-analysis is limited due to the availability of data in the literature and quality of children’s media exposure measures.