In my home, my DS who is 6 years old has no screentime except for Dreambox math and EPGY online once a week. He watches sporting events on TV on rare occasions or a youtube documentary or a Khan academy video. The restrictions are due to the fact that he has had problems sleeping as a toddler and our pediatrician advised us to cut out screentime as it could be one of the factors leading to sleeplessness because of the overstimulation to kids' brains and making it hard for them to unwind.

But, recently, I got into a discussion at my workplace (a tech company where everyone has a pro-tech bias) and a lot of people seem to think that it is old school to restrict access to children to electronics. They believe that playing video games and computer games dramatically improves the processing speed of those kids who are slow to respond to visual and auditory stimuli. And they also believe that small motor control improves with regular usage of a game console. There is some truth to it, I guess. I am looking for information or sources that can back up these thoughts (the discussion was water cooler talk and not serious, but it has made me speculate if there is truth behind it). If this is indeed true, I could implement a restricted usage of electronics for game playing to see if it helps focus and processing speed. Thank in advance.

This is more water cooler-quality talk, but DD8 reported this weekend how she's noticed that playing Minecraft on the computer has had a big impact on the development of her typing skills, because she enters various line commands (cheat codes) each session. I had taken notice as well.

It's also helped her develop familiarity with command-line interfaces, but she's not in a position to appreciate that.

I can definitely attest to the sleeplessness issue (since it happens to me on occasion), so the ideal would be to unplug from the computer/console/i-device at least an hour before bedtime. I don't really see the same issues around television, since it's a passive form of entertainment.

Full disclaimer - I am also a tech guy, so there's my bias. I can also say with certainty that my interest in technology began with gaming, and before I could use a computer as a toy, I had little to no interest.

Here are a press release and a popular press article on a University of Rochester study that links decision speed and accuracy to gaming.

http://rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3679

http://m.phys.org/_news203599948.html

I think a limited time of video gaming certainly isn't "bad." I'm not sure how good it is, but my kids love it, and it gives us all some downtime at the end of the day, so I don't mind it. Chatting online is how I got started with computers.. and it's my career now, so it worked out for me. My biggest concern is eye strain. I know years to staring at a big old CRT damaged my eyes, but I'm not sure how much impact the new screens have. It definitely doesn't seem great on the eye muscles, though.

I wish that I had been restricted from electronics when I was younger.

Mostly a waste of time, in my opinion.

And yes, it develops typing skills.

It also develops how to waste massive portions of your life skills.

A different variant on research... when the means becomes the end... million dollar prize pools in League of Legends tournaments: "We’re distributing $1,000,000 cash to hundreds of community-organized Prize Events throughout Season Two."

http://competitive.na.leagueoflegends.com/competitive/season-2/introduction

I've read through a lot of research on the subject. Not enough of it teases out causality through good design. But I'll see if I can find some that does.

dS5 has limited screen time as I would much prefer him to be running around with the dog, inventing/making things, playing with lego etc. it is easy to while away the time with screen time, so while I get to choose... he finds plenty of other ways to excercise his brain and fine/gross motor skills.

I don't think screen time is evil. I do, however, think you have to think about what it's replacing. What would your child be doing otherwise and does it have more value?

I attribute my success in part to hours spent playing Astrosmash as a child. I can't think of another game that rewards quick thinking (or punishes slow thinking) more than that one. I only hope that my children are as interested in playing it as I was.

I think practicing quick and strategical thinking playing video games could be quite beneficial for young children, particularly those who aren't appropriately challenged at school.