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Screen time tampers with preteens' ability to read the emotions of others
Screen Time
The American Academy of Pediatrics says children 2 and younger should have zero screen time and those older should have no more than a couple of hours a day. - photo by istockphoto.com/joerge60
Sixth-graders who turned off the TV and stepped away from other screens for a few days were much better at reading other people's emotions than those engaged with media during that same time, according to a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior. Background material provided by the University of California Los Angeles, which conducted the psychological study, noted that "children's social skills may be declining as they have less time for face-to-face interaction due to their increased use of digital media." "Many people are looking at the benefits of digital media in education, and not many are looking at the costs," said Patricia Greenfield, professor of psychology at UCLA and the study's senior author, in a written statement.
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