▲ Child smartphone use
A survey shows that half of all infants and toddlers begin using smartphones before the age of two.
According to the National Center for Mental Health, a survey of parents of 400 infants and toddlers aged 2 to 5 regarding the age at which their children started using smartphones found that 12 to 23 months of age was the most common response at 37.2%.
This was followed by 24 to 35 months at 26.7%, 0 to 11 months at 13.8%, 36 to 47 months at 12.4%, and 48 to 59 months at 13.0%.
Infants and toddlers who started using smartphones before turning two—specifically between 0 to 11 months and 12 to 23 months—accounted for 51.0% of the total, exceeding half.
Regarding daily smartphone usage time, 56.8% of children used it for less than an hour on weekdays, 32.7% did not use it at all, and 9.5% used it for 1 to less than 3 hours.
For weekends, responses of less than 1 hour stood at 54.9%, similar to weekdays, but usage for 1 to less than 3 hours jumped significantly to 22.6%, showing a tendency for much longer screen time.
Experts share the consensus that the use of smartphones by infants and toddlers should be avoided as much as possible.
In guidelines released in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that screen exposure, such as watching television or using smartphones, be avoided for infants under the age of 2, and limited to under one hour per day for children aged 2 to 4.
(Photo: Capture from Yonhap News TV, screenshot from the mental health research newsletter published by the Mental Health Research Institute under the National Center for Mental Health, Yonhap News)
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