Screen media exposure and young children's vocabulary learning and development: A meta‐analysis.

This meta‐analysis synthesizes research on media use in early childhood (0–6 years), word‐learning, and vocabulary size. Multi‐level analyses included 266 effect sizes from 63 studies (Ntotal = 11,413) published between 1988–2022. Among samples with information about race/ethnicity (51%) and sex/gender (73%), most were majority White/Non‐Hispanic and between 40%–60% female. Analyses revealed a small overall positive relation between screen media exposure and vocabulary (r =.23). Experimental studies yielded a small‐to‐medium effect (r =.30), with stronger effects for e‐books than TV/video or games/apps, and non‐significant effects for video chat. In correlational studies, there was no overall association between vocabulary size and naturalistic media exposure (r =.07), with the exception of naturalistic exposure to educational media (r =.17). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]