If It Bleeds, It Leads! vs. Due Diligence

“More Screen Time Linked to Delayed Development in Babies, Study Finds.”

Matt Richtel, writing for the New York Times, uses the above headline and opens his article with “One-year-olds exposed to more than four hours of screen time a day experienced developmental delays in communication and problem-solving skills at ages 2 and 4….” The study was published the same day in The Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics. Scary, yes?

He goes on to note, “The research also found that 1-year-olds who were exposed to more screen time than their peers showed delays at age 2 in the development of fine motor and personal and social skills.” A bit of good news: “But these delays appeared to dissipate by age 4.”

I went to the actual study, using the link that was provided by The Times. The study does not say that screen time caused the delay. It’s a case of correlation, not causation. The study’s authors said,

“Of the 7097 children in this study, 3674 were boys (51.8%) and 3423 were girls (48.2%)….” and concluded, “In this study, greater screen time for children aged 1 year was associated with developmental delays in communication and problem-solving at ages 2 and 4 years. These findings suggest that domains of developmental delay should be considered separately in future discussions on screen time and child development.”

Compare, if you will, paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 above that tell us what Richtel wrote, with what paragraphs 4 and 5 tell us the study’s actual authors wrote.

I hope you see, as I do, that Richtel is exercising the classic journalistic maxim: “If it bleeds, it leads.” That is to say, his coverage is rather alarmist and pursues the goal of attracting readership, as opposed to dispassionately providing useful information. And I suspect that he lacks a scientific understanding of the difference between correlation and causation.

So please, dear and gentle reader, when you see an article or listen to or watch a mainstream media story that seems to be reporting about some new scientific study, exercise due diligence and consult the source.