Objective: 

Results of studies examining relations between child media use and school readiness have been inconsistent. Importantly, studies often focus on a single outcome domain (e.g., academic, social, or behavioral), making the comparison of relative importance difficult; fail to account for confounding variables; and fail to investigate social-contextual moderators. This study investigated relations among child media use exposure, social-contextual factors, and multiple domains of school readiness in preschool-aged children.

Methods: 

Multivariate regression analyses were used to examine relations between child media use and 3 domains of school readiness (early learning, social-emotional skills, and self-regulation), controlling for demographic and social-contextual factors, and to investigate differential susceptibility by examining family income and 4 social-contextual factors (sleep, exposure to adverse childhood events, frequency of shared reading, and parent stress) as moderators in a large US population–based sample (N = 9323) of 3 to 5 year olds.

Results: 

After controlling for confounding variables, higher screentime was negatively related to children's social-emotional skills and self-regulation, but less so for early learning. Effect sizes were small. The relation between screentime and self-regulation was significantly moderated by family income, such that the relation was stronger for children from low-income backgrounds. No other evidence of significant moderation was found.

Conclusion: 

Results add to evidence that the relation between screen media use and outcomes in young children is likely complex. Future work should prioritize examining impacts of screen media use on social and behavioral functioning to further inform the evaluation of relative benefits and costs of child screen media use.

中文翻译：

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基于人群的儿童屏幕媒体使用、社会背景因素和入学准备之间关联的研究

客观的： 

研究儿童媒体使用与入学准备之间关系的研究结果并不一致。重要的是，研究通常集中于单一结果领域（例如，学术、社会或行为），使得相对重要性的比较变得困难；未能考虑混杂变量；并且未能调查社会背景的调节者。本研究调查了儿童媒体使用暴露、社会背景因素以及学龄前儿童入学准备的多个领域之间的关系。

方法： 

使用多变量回归分析来检验儿童媒体使用与入学准备的三个领域（早期学习、社交情感技能和自我调节）之间的关系，控制人口和社会背景因素，并通过检查家庭来调查差异易感性在美国 3 至 5 岁儿童的大型样本 (N = 9323) 中，收入和 4 个社会背景因素（睡眠、童年不良事件的暴露、共同阅读的频率和父母压力）作为调节因素。

结果： 

在控制了混杂变量后，较长的屏幕时间与儿童的社交情感技能和自我调节能力呈负相关，但与早期学习的关系较小。效应量很小。家庭收入显着调节屏幕时间与自我调节之间的关系，因此对于低收入背景的儿童，这种关系更为强烈。没有发现其他显着缓和的证据。

结论： 

结果进一步证明，屏幕媒体的使用与幼儿的结果之间的关系可能很复杂。未来的工作应优先考虑屏幕媒体使用对社会和行为功能的影响，以进一步评估儿童屏幕媒体使用的相对效益和成本。