According to the news, a study has shown that screen time for infants causes autism
This is WILDLY INACCURATE NONSENSE, especially during #COVID19 when lots of people are getting more screen time than usualpic.twitter.com/gLHf1GEGuS
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Now, I'm no childhood autism researcher, but I'm pretty sure that asking only about TV and DVDs in 2010-12 would've missed a huge swathe of potential screen time For example, the first iPad came out April 2010
But this isn't the last huge potential issue here Remember when I mentioned the LINEAR regression that spat out all the positive results? Yeh, about that
The variable that they were using this linear model to predict was a 0-20 numerical scale made up of integers (+1 for every 'yes' answer), likely clustered around low values This is not an ideal target for linear regression
It's essentially an ordinal outcome - an ordered scale from 0-20 indicating autism risk - and without any transformations (which were not reported) it's unlikely that the linear model used was appropriate for this analysis
It's also worth remembering that this study DIDN'T LOOK AT FORMAL AUTISM DIAGNOSIS Even the more clinically useful variable was yes/no on a relatively arbitrary scale of autism risk
The only real take-home from this study is that the children of parents who report that they watch more TV/DVD may have a tiny increase in their risk of autism-like symptoms but who knows because the stats were a bit dodgy anyway
TL:DR - study wasn't great - didn't show that screens cause autism - barely even showed an association - don't worry about screens and your kids too much, there's a pandemic on
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