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An unpublished conference abstract presented at the Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) Meeting 2024 looks at screen time and early physical development.
Professor Ken Ong, Epidemiologist and Paediatric Endocrinologist, MRC Epidemiology Unit & Department of Paediatrics, University of Cambridge, said:
“During the COVID pandemic rates of clinic-diagnosed early puberty increased 2 to 3-fold in several countries around the world. Greater exposure to blue light, from TVs computers and smartphones, was one plausible explanation. However children’s behaviour also changed in many other aspects, including diet and weight gain. The findings from this study are therefore highly pertinent. But it would be important to know how equivalent the blue light exposure in those studies is to children’s, and whether it made the rats stressed or changed their diet or behaviour in some way, rather than a direct effect of blue light on puberty.”
Dorothy Bishop, Emeritus Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology, University of Oxford, said:
“I would urge strong caution in drawing any conclusions from this study about impact of light from screens on children. I think the press release statement that “this study raises important questions about the long-term health effects in children, who are increasingly exposed to screens from a young age” is irresponsible.
“We have only a study abstract to go on, though one can get some idea of methods from earlier studies published by the authors on what appears to be the same sample of animals.
“The main problems are that:
“a) Rat development is vastly different from human development. One rat month is equivalent to about three human years, so rats reach puberty within around 30-50 days of age, and are adult by 6 months.
“b) The light exposure used in these studies is extreme, with nonstop blue light in the home cage for either 6 hrs or 12 hr per day continuously. This is unlike a child’s exposure to a screen.
“The previous studies reported by the authors would not be deemed of high quality; they do not appear to have used the ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) which is a checklist of recommendations for the full and transparent reporting of research involving animals – “maximising the quality and reliability of published research, and enabling others to better scrutinise, evaluate and reproduce it1“.
1 – https://arriveguidelines.org/
Professor Pete Etchells, Professor of Psychology and Science Communication, Bath Spa University, UK, said:
“This is an unpublished conference presentation that has not undergone the usual checks and balances of the peer review process, and as such I don’t understand why a press release has been written for it. The press release talks about the impact of screen time on childhood development, but this study has nothing to do with screen time, or children – it is a small study of limited blue light exposure to young rats. It is simply incorrect, then, to state that “excessive screen time” has been linked to early physical development. Further, the type and intensity of light exposure used here is not easily translatable to the practical reality of how children interact with screen-based technologies. I’m therefore not clear what, if anything, this study adds in terms of informing and reassuring the very real concerns that many people have about the potential positive and negative impacts of screen-based technologies.”
The abstract ‘The Effects of Blue Light Exposure on the Epiphyseal Plate and IGF1 – IGFBP3 Expression in Rats’ Kılınç Uğurlu et al. 2024 was presented at EPSE 2024. The embargo lifted at 00:01 UK time on Saturday November 16 2024.
Declared interests
Dorothy Bishop “I have no conflict of interest to declare.”
Professor Pete Etchells “Pete Etchells is the author of Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and how to spend it better).”
For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.