The research behind Yodiah

Dutch parents report that children aged 0 to 6 spent an average of 102 minutes a day on screens in early 2026. That's about an hour a day for under-twos and about an hour and a half for two- to six-year-olds. The Dutch national guideline advises no screens before age two, no more than half an hour a day from two to four, and no more than an hour from four to eight. The WHO gives similar advice for children under five. A Canadian study that followed children over time linked more screen time at ages two and three with lower scores on a developmental screening test later on.

A 2020 meta-analysis of 42 studies and nearly 19,000 children found that more screen time went with weaker language skills. Educational programmes and watching together with an adult went with stronger ones. The American Academy of Pediatrics gives the same advice for children aged two to five: choose high-quality programmes, watch with your child, and help them connect what they see to the world around them.

Researchers who reviewed decades of learning science named four things that make an app educational. Children are actively thinking, not just tapping. They stay focused on the learning instead of being pulled away by distractions. The content connects to their own lives. And it involves other people. At the time, app stores listed around 80,000 apps as educational, and most had never been tested against anything like this.

A 2022 study looked at the apps children aged three to five used most. Four in five used manipulative design: characters who pressure children to keep playing, made-up time pressure, lures to play longer or buy more, and pressure from ads. Children from less advantaged homes ran into these the most. In a separate experiment, autoplay made it much harder for preschoolers to stop at the limit their family had set. The researchers' conclusion was that an app's design can undermine a child's autonomy or support it.

Researchers who studied families with children aged one to five found that moving away from a screen was often painful. Transitions went better when the technology ended the session than when a parent had to step in. One finding surprised the researchers: a simple "two more minutes" warning didn't make things easier, and often made them worse.

UNESCO estimates that 40% of the world's people don't get an education in a language they speak or understand. It found that this holds learning back, especially for children living in poverty, and recommends at least six years of teaching in a child's mother tongue.

In July 2025 the European Commission published guidelines on protecting minors under the Digital Services Act. They ask online platforms that children can use to switch off addictive design features by default and to adjust their recommender systems. The Act itself already bans ads that target minors based on profiling.