TikTok and other video apps appear to alter pre-schoolers' behaviour


Pre-school children who are given access to the likes of TikTok or Instagram's Reels are likely to develop aggressive behaviour, research suggests. — Photo: Hans-Jürgen Wiedl/dpa

BEIJING: Any parents considering giving their three or four-year-old access to social media or streaming apps such as TikTok might want to think again.

A team of Chinese researchers has found that pre-schoolers who "excessively" use such platforms are more likely to be aggressive and potentially anti-social than others of the same age.

Published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, the findings point to the "need for parents and educators to address preschool children's video usage," according to the researchers, most of whom are based at Southwest University in Chongqing and Chengdu No.13 Kindergarten.

"Short-form video overuse was negatively correlated with prosocial behaviours and positively correlated with aggressive behaviours," the team found. Pro-social behaviour typically refers to actions that appear altruistic, of benefit to others and inclined to boost cohesion.

"Excessive use of short-form videos among preschool children has become increasingly prevalent," the team warned, explaining that they set out to clarify how exposure to such apps affects "social behaviour development" in children between the ages of three and six.

Some others may wonder how or why children of that age are permitted to use phones in the first place: after all, there are multiple studies linking phone and social media use with negative behaviour and even mental health problems among adults.

The findings follow complaints levelled against Twitch, another streaming app, which was accused in 2023 of lacking protections for children. More recently, concerns have been raised about the suitability or children of increasingly widespread and popular artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, with Google's Gemini deemed unsafe in a recent report by Common Sense Media. – dpa

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