Prayagraj, Nov 15 (IANS): A study conducted by a research scholar of the Allahabad University's anthropology department has recommended that the screen time should be reduced to less than two hours per day, especially during early childhood.

The study has underlined the importance of parental monitoring and devising a policy to regulate the ownership of digital devices like TV, laptops and smartphones.

The study was published by Sage in the international journal, "Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society" and conducted by Madhvi Tripathi, the research scholar who has done Ph.D under assistant professor Shailendra Kumar Mishra.

It underscores the importance of parental monitoring and devising a policy to regulate the ownership of digital devices.

"Given that Prayagraj holds the largest population in the state (Census 2011), a cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 children using the two-stage random sampling method. In the first stage, 10 municipal wards were randomly selected in the Prayagraj city. Each of these wards have a total population between 11,000 and 22,000. In the second stage, children were selected in proportion to their population from each selected ward to achieve a sample size," said Tripathi.

The findings revealed that an overwhelming majority of households have television followed by digital cameras, laptops, tablets, kindle and video games.

"This leads to children spending more screen time which not only affects them physically and damages eye sight, it also has an adverse impact on their mental health, depending on the type of content they watch," said Tripathi.