Is screen time affecting your child’s sleep?
“88% said screen time had a negative impact on their sleep”

(Source: Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.)

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) have published a guide (2019) which reviews the existing research on screen time usage by children. As a result of this research they have published a number of recommendations. One of those recommendations is around screen use before bed time.

• Does screen use interfere with sleep? Even quite modest sleep deprivation can interfere with mental and physical health, educational success and family relations. It is important, therefore, that screens do not interfere with a good bedtime routine, either for children or adults, and we would adopt the expert recommendation that screens are avoided for an hour before the planned bedtime.” 

• Protect sleep Most experts advise that children are not exposed to screens for an hour before bed, so that their brains have time to wind down for sleep without the stimulation from the light of the screen (and the content being viewed). Some manufacturers have introduced ‘night-modes’ which emit less blue light, but there is no evidence that these are effective so we do not think that this makes screen use before bed ‘OK’.

Chatting in games
Most popular online games include the ability to chat with others, likely strangers. We look at 3 of the most popular games to show you how to disable chat (where possible). If you don’t want to turn chat off then we recommend children play without a headset and in a room where you can hear their conversations. As always, ensure your children know how to report players and they know that they should also talk to you or a trusted adult if anything concerns them.

Fortnite (Recommended Age 13+)
Fortnite contains voice and text chat systems. You can turn the voice chat off but not the text chat. To turn chat off, go to Settings, Audio and switch voice chat to off.

Minecraft (All ages – Parental permission required to create an account if user is under 13 years)
In multiplayer mode children can chat with other people. To turn chat off, click ‘options’, select multiplayer settings and click on chat choose shown, hidden or commands only.

Roblox (Recommended Age 13+)
For users aged 12 and under, Roblox automatically enforce more restricted settings so they can only directly message other friends(that they’ve accepted), but does your child know all their ‘friends’ on Roblox? Are they signed up with their right age? To adjust the chat and interaction settings of your child's account, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner and click Settings, click the Privacy option and adjust the Contact Settings and Other Settings.