Why iPad Babies Have More Tantrums

We’ve all seen it happen: a young child is having a tantrum in public. They get fussy, sitting in the seat of the grocery cart or waiting with their parents to board a plane. Their voice gets louder, their face goes red. They might start pulling things off the shelves at the store, kicking their seat or even their parents. But before the cranky child reaches full-blown meltdown mode, they’re pacified; a tablet appears before them, playing their favourite cartoon, Paw Patrol or Cocomelon and, like magic, the tantrum is forgotten. The child stares, wide-eyed at the screen. Everyone around them sighs, thankful that the meltdown was avoided. But the issue has just been punted down the road. 

I’ve been studying children’s screentime since 2009. Back then, I was interested in how TV consumption was contributing to their early school readiness and development. My training is in developmental psychology, specifically psychoeducation, and I wanted to understand why some kids were thriving in kindergarten while others struggled. 

I studied a sample of children born in 1998 who would have been preschoolers in the early 2000s—years before the introduction of tablets and smartphones. Our studies found that TV screentime contributed to children’s school readiness across the board: it was related to their cognitive readiness, their social readiness and their physical motor readiness. Kids who spent more hours per day watching television had less classroom engagement, more interpersonal problems with peers, lower number knowledge scores, a smaller vocabulary and worse motor development. 

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Of course, TV is no longer the default screen for kids. A 2025 report by Common Sense Media found that 40 per cent of toddlers have their own tablet by the time they’re two. Children in the two-to-four age range spent about two hours per day on screens, while those under two watch screens for about one hour per day. Researchers have linked excessive screentime to development delays in motor skills, emotional regulation, speech development and problem solving.

Imagine a three-year-old named Emma who likes to watch her favourite cartoon on a tablet. Her parents are happy because it keeps her occupied while they make dinner or do chores. But over time, Emma wants to spend more time on the tablet. When her parents say no, she gets angry and frustrated. The tablet calms her down, so sometimes, Emma’s parents bring it out to avoid a tantrum. This is what researchers call digital emotion regulation, or digital pacifying, and it’s an effective and often immediate strategy. The child calms down nearly instantly, and parents avoid a public outburst. In the short term, it’s a miracle. In the long term, not so much.  

In 2020, I ran a study through Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia and then Université de Sherbrooke, observing 300 families and measuring children’s and parents’ screen use. We found that three-year-olds who spent more time on tablets had more outbursts of anger and frustration one year later. We also found that, by age four, the children who had more outbursts were more likely to have even more screen use by age five. In a separate study last year with colleagues at Budapest’s Eötvös Loránd University, we asked parents how frequently they used tablets specifically with the aim of calming children down. Once again, more tablet use at age three was associated with more outbursts of anger and frustration at age four, and worse self-control. 

It’s a vicious cycle, where using screens to calm tantrums actually increases how often a child has tantrums in the future. We don’t know exactly what it is about screens that are causing this spiral, but it likely comes back to the fact that a tablet is an external regulation tool. That’s why it’s an effective way to stop a meltdown—it shifts children’s focus away from their emotions and onto the screen. It’s a quick fix, but it stops children from learning to regulate themselves.

On top of the tantrums, there is also the link between children’s school readiness and screentime. Educators in the U.K. and in Canada are concerned that children are coming into kindergarten with insufficient autonomy. This is one of the first times we expect kids to act on their own—they need to be able to take off their own jackets, follow instructions for classwork, sit at their desks. When kids struggle with autonomy, they have a hard time adapting to this transition. This year, a U.K. survey found that more than 50 per cent of kindergarten teachers said they believe too much screentime is interfering with children’s school readiness. 

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from early childhood professionals who say children now struggle more with social situations. When a conflict arises—say, if another child takes their toy—they are overly reliant on the teacher to intervene. I’ve also heard occupational therapists say they are noticing more and more young children with motor delays who can’t tie their shoes, zip up their jackets, or put on their winter clothes. One expert even blames screentime for the decline in children’s speech and language developments.

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These delays might be explained by the displacement hypothesis: if children are spending more time using screens, they have less time for imaginary play, exploring their environment, or interacting with caregivers or other children. Screens can borrow time away from these activities that are developmentally essentially for children. 

As she spends more time on screens, our hypothetical toddler, Emma, might start to experience media meltdowns. When her screen is taken away, she might cry, yell or throw herself to the ground. Too much tablet use could also start interfering with other activities critical to Emma’s development, like sleeping and eating. She could lose interest in socializing with other children and engaging in physical and imaginative play. 

Children generally improve their self-regulation during preschool years, but it’s not an automatic fix: they need adults to help them. One way is through shared book-reading, when parents can explain how characters handle negative emotions. Understanding how Junie B. Jones deals with a tough situation can help a child adopt similar strategies. Studies by American researcher John Hutton and his team looked at screen use in preschool-aged children and found that children with more screen use tended to have suboptimal brain development, especially in areas responsible for language and self-control. By contrast, he found that reading a book is associated with better brain development. Another way children learn self-regulation is through imaginary play with other children, which encourages healthy role-playing and imagination. Over time, children develop internal self-regulation skills, instead of relying on the tablet’s external regulation. 

It’s not just the screens that are an issue: it’s also what they’re showing. Increasingly, toddlers are consuming short-form, algorithm-based video platforms—the same ones many adults say wreak havoc on their own, fully developed attention spans. These short videos are fast-paced, stimulating and often play automatically. Children learn a lot when they’re engaged in long, uninterrupted periods of play. It’s important for them to get absorbed in a task, which helps them learn focus. They’re better off consuming slower, educational content that asks them to participate by singing, dancing or repeating lines. 

We know that low emotional regulation can plague kids into their adult life, affecting their relationships and their physical and mental health. When we use phones as pacifiers, we’re denying kids critical opportunities to learn to regulate their emotions, setting them up for a harder go later in life. The earlier we intervene, the easier it is to snap out of the cycle.

Caroline Fitzpatrick is an associate professor of education at Université de Sherbrooke, where she studies cognitive development in children. She also holds the Canadian Research Chair in digital media use by children.