68% of parents with children under 6 say their kids need a ‘detox’ from technology. Here’s why that’s scary, say experts

Two tiny boys look at a smartphone, as one sucks his thumb (Credit: Getty Images)

The combination of kids and too much screen time comes with no shortage of worries: Cognitive delays, executive functioning issues, and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and insomnia are all associated with allowing little eyes to gaze on smartphones, tablets, or other screens too early and too often. 

Still, the research—as well as dire warnings, issued by everyone from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry to social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt, who pleads for no smartphones before high school—still goes ignored by many parents.