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New research into the associations between digital device use and children's well-being reveals the negative links between screen time and parent-child relationships.

The research, which focused on the screen time habits of children aged from four to six years old, found their behavior and social interactions deteriorated when they spent a lot of time on screens and, importantly for this young age group, the negative impacts extended to their interactions with their parents.

Research lead Jacquelyn Harverson, a Ph.D. candidate from Deakin University's School of Psychology, said the findings were significant, revealing that even at this young age, screen time may interfere with the parent-child relationship.

"Children have a really strong bond with their parents at this young age and the health of that relationship underpins their ongoing positive development," Harverson said.

"We need to consider that screen time may be linked with not only children's own behavior, but importantly, the interactions with those around them that are so crucial at this key point in a young child's life."

For her research, Harverson analyzed 51 international studies which included observations from more than 83,000 parents of children aged between 4 and 6 years. The findings, in Computers in Human Behavior show screen use is associated with overall decline in psychosocial well-being, behavioral difficulties, poor social functioning, and a decline in the quality of the parent-child relationship.

But importantly, the study also revealed that the content and context of screen use was significant.

"We found that when children engaged in digital home learning with their parents, the negative impacts were not as pronounced," Harverson said.

"This shows that it is not just about how much time children spend on screens but that what they are doing and who they are with is also important."

Dr. Sharon Horwood from Deakin's SEED Lifespan Strategic Research Centre said there was a lot of conflicting information about screen time, its harms and benefits, but this research clearly showed that children's well-being was closely tied to screen use.

"Although there are some important benefits of screen time for kids, particularly in terms of education and learning, this study suggests that we need to think more deeply about how digital tech use might be related to how kids feel and how they relate to the important people in their world," Dr. Horwood said.

"One of the important findings from our study is that we too often think of this issue primarily in terms of how much time kids spend on devices, but time is only a small piece of the puzzle.

"We're beginning to see how complex kids' screen time is and simply relying on time as the measure of 'good' or 'bad' is an enormous oversimplification of the problem."