No Screen Time Day’ will take place on Wednesday 20 November across all schools and early learning and childcare settings in East Ayrshire. The initiative has been jointly co-ordinated by East Ayrshire Speech and Language Therapy Team and East Ayrshire Council.

It’s hoped that ‘No Screen Time Day’ will raise awareness of the positives of reducing screen time and increasing social face-to-face interactions, and play-based interactions which are particularly crucial for early language development.

• Children aged 5-15 spend an average of 2 hours 11 minutes a day online.
• 82% of children aged 5-7 go online for around 9.5 hrs a week.
• 99% of teens spends almost a full day (24hrs) online a week.
• 71% of teens who have a mobile take it to bed with them.
• 69% of teens also have a social media profile.(Source: Ofcom, 2019; Scott, Biello & Woods 2019)
• Research shows that prolonged time spent in front of screens and on social media can negatively affect their sleep, which can have a knock on effect on health, well-being, education and relationships with friends and family.