Screens, overstimulation and early childhood

Our reason for being · Chéche Studios · October 2026

Why we talk about this

Chéche Studios was born from a very simple question: what are our kids watching, and what is it doing to them? We are a dad and his family who were looking for children's content that didn't leave our son wound up, irritable or glued to the screen, and we couldn't find it.

Science has been studying what screens do in the first years of life for a long time. The most important conclusion is not that screens are bad in themselves. It's that how much time, what content and in whose company matter a lot.

These are the five points that worry us most as a family, and the ones that guided every decision behind FauFau.

1Language is learned by talking, not by listening to a screen

Young children learn to speak through back-and-forth with an adult: we talk to them, they respond, we answer back. A screen talks, but it doesn't listen or respond. Every hour in front of it tends to be an hour with less real conversation.

A study published in PLOS ONE in 2025 followed 1,878 children aged 12 to 48 months in 20 Latin American countries, including Mexico. Those who spent more time on screens had smaller vocabularies and reached language milestones later. A TV left on "in the background", even when nobody was watching, was also harmful.

In Australia, another team measured what this means in daily life. A 3-year-old with about three hours of screen time a day could miss out on hearing more than 1,100 adult words and nearly 200 conversations with their parents, every single day. They call this technoference: technology interfering with interaction.

The good news: the same Latin American study found that watching screens together with an adult, and reading books together, were linked to better language.

2Fast-paced content drains attention and self-control

Think about how you feel after an hour of jumping between short videos: scattered, restless, wanting more. Something similar happens to children, but with a brain that is still being built.

What are "executive functions"? They are the skills that let us pay attention, wait our turn, control an impulse, remember an instruction and solve a problem step by step. They live in the front part of the brain, which in children aged 2 to 7 is only just developing. They are key to learning at school and getting along with others.

The experiment. Researchers at the University of Virginia split 60 four-year-olds into three groups for 9 minutes:

One group watched a very popular fast-paced cartoon full of fantastical events.
Another watched an educational cartoon that was slower and more realistic.
The third group drew pictures.

Afterwards, all of them played games that measure executive function: waiting before eating a treat, following rules, remembering information and solving a disk puzzle. The children who watched the fast-paced cartoon did worse on every test. Those who watched the slow cartoon, on the other hand, did just as well as the kids who had been drawing with no screen: that pacing didn't affect them.

Why does this happen? The fast cartoon changed the whole scene every 11 seconds; the slow one, every 34. It also showed things that are impossible in real life. The authors believe the child's brain works enormously hard to process so much new information so quickly, and runs out of "battery" for focus and self-control. That, in a nutshell, is overstimulation.

The study measured the immediate effect, not the long term. But the message is clear: not all content is the same. Pacing matters.

3The screen as a pacifier: calm today, cost tomorrow

We've all done it: the child cries at a restaurant, we hand over the phone and they calm down instantly. It works, and that's why it's so tempting. The problem starts when it becomes the usual way of handling difficult emotions.

Learning to calm down is a skill, like walking or talking. It's practiced by going through anger, frustration or boredom with an adult alongside. Every tantrum worked through with help is a small training session. If the screen always arrives first, the child loses those chances to practice.

A Canadian study published in JAMA Pediatrics followed the same children for three years. Those who used a tablet more at 3½ showed more anger and frustration at 4½. And those who had more tantrums were given even more screen time afterwards.

A cycle forms: more screen to soothe, less ability to self-soothe, more tantrums, more screen. Another study of 422 children aged 3 to 5 reached a similar conclusion: using devices to calm them down was linked to greater emotional reactivity over time.

Nobody is blaming parents. Researchers insist it's understandable. It's simply worth knowing this cycle exists so we can break it.

4Less sleep makes emotions harder to handle

Sleep isn't just rest. While a child sleeps, their brain sorts what they learned during the day, recovers, and practices processing emotions. A child who sleeps poorly usually tolerates less frustration the next day.

Screens affect sleep in several ways: they push bedtime later, exciting content leaves kids "wired", and device light confuses the body's internal clock. Recent research points to less sleep as one of the main pathways through which too much screen time leads to emotional and behavioral problems.

A Spanish study of preschool children confirmed it: those who stayed within screen limits and got enough sleep had fewer emotional and behavioral difficulties. Swapping screen time for sleep time was linked to better outcomes in almost every area measured.

The WHO recommends that children aged 1 to 2 sleep at least 11 hours a day, including naps.

5Every hour of screen is an hour without playing, moving or connecting

The harm of screens isn't only in what they show, but in what they displace. The early years are when body and brain grow fastest, and they grow through play: climbing, painting, building, making up stories, talking at the table.

That's why the World Health Organization published its first guidelines for children under 5 in 2019. Its core message: less time sitting in front of screens, better sleep and more active play.

Age	Recommended screen time	Physical activity
Under 1 year	None	Several times a day, especially floor play
1 year	None	At least 3 hours a day
2 to 4 years	No more than 1 hour a day; less is better	At least 3 hours a day

The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees: avoid screens before 18 months, except video calls, and after that choose quality content and watch it together with the child.

Not all screens are the same: how FauFau responds

We know screens are already part of family life. So we didn't set out to eliminate them, but to make content that respects how children grow and invites them to step away from it. Every FauFau video follows the rules that guide us:

Slow pacing. Gentle camera moves and never more than two elements moving at the same time, so nothing overwhelms.
Soft colors and a calm voice, instead of flashes, shouting and sudden changes.
Emotions with names. Each character has a musical style and an emotion or value: courage, calm, sharing, self-acceptance. The songs help kids recognize what they feel.
Invite, never command. We don't say "calm down"; we suggest breathing, moving or singing together.
A bridge off the screen. Each video has its own visual style, inspired by watercolor, clay or origami, to spark the urge to try it at home.
Made to watch as a family. Songs designed to be sung together, because watching together is exactly what research points to as protective.

Less screen, more dinner table.

And when there is a screen, let it be one that leaves children calmer than they were before.

Practical ideas for home

This isn't about guilt; it's about small changes that add up:

Watch with them. Talk about what's happening, ask how the characters feel, sing the songs.
Turn off background TV. If nobody is watching, it's better off.
Choose pacing, not just topic. Prefer slow-paced shows over ones with fast, loud cuts.
One video at a time. Avoid autoplay and agree beforehand when it ends.
Keep screens out of the bedtime routine. A story or a lullaby is better in the last hour before bed.
Stay with the tantrum. When you can, name the emotion and breathe together before reaching for the phone.
Bring the screen into the real world. If they saw something made with clay or watercolor, get the materials out and try it.

An honest note about the evidence

Many of these studies show associations: they find that two things go together, but they don't always prove that one causes the other. The WHO itself acknowledged that its recommendations rest on evidence that is still limited. Even so, different studies in different countries point in the same direction, and for us that's enough to care about what our children watch.

Sources

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