Info for parents

What pediatricians say about screens

The American Academy of Pediatrics published a new policy statement in 2026. It moves away from leading with time limits. What matters most, it says, is the quality of what a child is using and whether screens crowd out sleep, play, movement and reading. For families who want a number, it suggests under an hour a day for toddlers and preschoolers.¹

The same statement says the benefits of good content are stronger when an adult joins in, and that more time alone with a screen goes along with poorer sleep and less reading. It names the design features that mark low-quality media: frequent rewards, embedded ads and too many interactive elements. It says autoplay should be off by default and notes that notifications can disturb sleep.¹

The age bands most parents have heard come from the Academy's 2016 statement:²

• Under 18 months: avoid screen media other than video chat.
• 18 to 24 months: only high-quality content, and only together with an adult.
• 2 to 5 years: about an hour a day of high-quality content, watched or read together.
• All ages: no screens during meals or in the hour before bedtime.

The World Health Organization's 2019 guidelines are stricter for the youngest: no screen time recommended before age 2, and no more than an hour a day from 2 to 4, with less being better. At every age it encourages reading and storytelling with a caregiver.³

The Academy also offers parents a simple checklist, the 5 Cs: your child, the content, calm, crowding out, and communication.⁴ It is a good way to think about any app, including this one.

Reading together is the part that works

The best-studied way to read with a young child is called dialogic reading. The adult asks open questions, waits, and builds on what the child says. In the original 1988 trial, a month of reading this way at home raised children's expressive language compared with ordinary reading.⁵ Later reviews found the same pattern, strongest for two- and three-year-olds.⁶

The effects are real but modest. A 2020 review of 19 randomized trials found small gains in the language children use and understand.⁷ A stricter review found smaller gains still, and found that they faded.⁸ Reading together is worth doing for many reasons. It is not a shortcut to anything.

The Academy's 2024 policy on early literacy recommends reading together from birth through at least kindergarten. It prefers print books for young children, and says that if you do read on a screen, you should talk back and forth just as you would with paper.⁹

Paper versus screen

This is where an honest page has to slow down, because print often wins.

In a 2019 study of parents and toddlers, paper books produced more conversation and more cooperation than tablet books. That was true even for a plain e-book with no extras, which suggests the tablet itself changes how families behave.¹⁰

A 2021 review of 39 studies found that children understood stories less well from plain digital books than from paper ones. Digital books did better than paper only when their extras directly supported the story, and an adult reading a paper book still beat an enhanced digital book read alone.¹¹

The extras that hurt are consistent across studies: games, tappable hotspots and anything else that pulls attention off the story.^{12, 13}

There is encouraging evidence too. In a 2023 experiment, picture books with conversation prompts built in led parents and children to talk more, on screen as well as on paper, and a narration option did not reduce that talk.¹⁴ But narration is no substitute for you. Preschoolers in one study followed some of an e-book from the audio alone and remembered the most after reading it with a parent.¹⁵

Books about your own child

Research on personalized books is thin. The studies are small, and none has tested books with painted likenesses like ours.

What exists suggests children enjoy them. In one study of toddlers, personalized books brought more smiles, laughter and chatter than ordinary ones.¹⁶ In another, preschoolers learned more of the new words that appeared in the personalized parts of a book.¹⁷

The researcher behind much of this work, Natalia Kucirkova, also raises cautions. Children reading books about themselves tend to talk mostly about themselves, and parents matter in steering the conversation outward.^{18, 19} She argues that children need stories where they are not the hero as well.¹⁹ And when researchers put preschoolers' names into a story about sharing, the children neither understood it better nor shared more.²⁰

So we expect a Storyo book to delight your child. We don't claim it teaches more than the same story would with someone else in it.

Reading it again

Three-year-olds who heard the same stories several times in a week learned and kept new words. Children who met the same words spread across different stories did not.²¹ Rhyme and rhythm help as well: young children learn a new word best when it lands where the rhyme makes it predictable, especially if the reader pauses just before it.²²

These are small studies, so the fair conclusion is a modest one. Rereading is good, and "again!" is a request worth granting.

Screens and sleep

The Academy recommends no screens in the hour before bed and no devices in the bedroom.^{1, 2} A review of 31 studies of children under five linked screen time with poorer sleep, most clearly for evening use, though the evidence was rated very low quality.²³ In a 2024 trial, families who swapped screens for books and puzzles in the hour before bed saw modest improvements in toddlers' sleep.²⁴

We found no research that makes an exception for a calm book read together on a tablet. Storyo has goodnight stories, and we would still read them before the bath and keep paper for the last book of the night.

How Storyo is built around this

These choices remove problems the research names. They don't make an app good for a child by themselves. What you do with it does.

How we'd use it

• Sit together and hold the device yourself, the way you would hold a book, where you can both see.
• Read it in your own voice. Do the sounds. The big words on the page are meant to be loud.
• Pause and ask. "What do you think happens next?" "What would you do?" The questions on the last page are a start, not a script.
• Point past your child. They will notice themselves without help. Ask about the cat, the digger, the weather, how someone else in the story feels.
• Read one or two books, then put it away. Storyo ends when the book does. Let that be the end of the screen as well.
• Read it in the daytime. Keep the hour before sleep for paper.
• Reread. A book your child already has costs nothing to open again.
• Keep it on a shared family device, and keep reading paper books every day.

By age

• Under 18 months: we'd wait. Board books, your face and your voice are what the guidance recommends.
• 18 months to 3 years: the short books, always on a lap, one at a time. Expect to read the same one for a week.
• 3 to 6 years: the longer stories. Let your child turn the pages and do more of the talking at the end.

What we don't claim

• Storyo has not been tested in a study. We don't claim it improves language, reading, behavior or confidence.
• It is not endorsed or recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization or any researcher cited here.
• Each book names a small lesson. Naming a lesson is not the same as teaching it; the conversation afterwards does that, if anything does.
• The pictures are made with AI from a photo you provide. The Academy has said it will address AI and children separately, so there is no guidance on that yet. How we handle the photo is in the privacy policy.

If you think something on this page is wrong or out of date, tell us.

Sources

1. Munzer T, Parga-Belinkie J, Milkovich LM, et al.; AAP Council on Communications and Media. Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents: Policy Statement. Pediatrics. 2026;157(2):e2025075320. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13122503
2. AAP Council on Communications and Media. Media and Young Minds. Pediatrics. 2016;138(5):e20162591. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27940793
3. World Health Organization. To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more. 24 April 2019. who.int
4. AAP Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. Kids & Screen Time: How to Use the 5 C's of Media Guidance. Updated 2026. healthychildren.org
5. Whitehurst GJ, Falco FL, Lonigan CJ, et al. Accelerating language development through picture book reading. Developmental Psychology. 1988;24(4):552-559. eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ375345
6. Mol SE, Bus AG, de Jong MT, Smeets DJH. Added Value of Dialogic Parent-Child Book Readings: A Meta-Analysis. Early Education and Development. 2008;19(1):7-26. eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ787378
7. Dowdall N, Melendez-Torres GJ, Murray L, et al. Shared Picture Book Reading Interventions for Child Language Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Child Development. 2020;91(2):e383-e399. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30737957
8. Noble C, Sala G, Peter M, et al. The impact of shared book reading on children's language skills: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review. 2019;28:100290. mpi.nl
9. Klass P, Miller-Fitzwater A, High PC; AAP Council on Early Childhood. Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice: Policy Statement. Pediatrics. 2024;154(6):e2024069090. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39342414. Summarized by the AAP at healthychildren.org
10. Munzer TG, Miller AL, Weeks HM, Kaciroti N, Radesky J. Differences in Parent-Toddler Interactions With Electronic Versus Print Books. Pediatrics. 2019;143(4):e20182012. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6564071
11. Furenes MI, Kucirkova N, Bus AG. A Comparison of Children's Reading on Paper Versus Screen: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research. 2021;91(4):483-517. eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1301549
12. Takacs ZK, Swart EK, Bus AG. Benefits and Pitfalls of Multimedia and Interactive Features in Technology-Enhanced Storybooks: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research. 2015;85(4):698-739. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26640299
13. Bus AG, Kucirkova N, ten Braak D, Ciesielska M. Which Interactive Features in Children's Digital Picture Books Promote Reading Comprehension? A Meta-Analysis. Early Education and Development. 2026;37(2):269-288. doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2025.2571978
14. Strouse GA, Troseth GL, Stuckelman ZD. Page and screen: Storybook features that promote parent-child talk during shared reading. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 2023;86:101522. doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2023.101522
15. Dore RA, Hassinger-Das B, Brezack N, et al. The Parent Advantage in Fostering Children's E-Book Comprehension. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 2018;44:24-33. eric.ed.gov/?id=ED583175
16. Kucirkova N, Messer D, Whitelock D. Parents reading with their toddlers: The role of personalization in book engagement. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. 2013;13(4):445-470. eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1019270
17. Kucirkova N, Messer D, Sheehy K. Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition. First Language. 2014;34(3):227-243. eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1078710
18. Kucirkova N, Gattis M, Spargo TP, Seisdedos de Vega B, Flewitt R. An empirical investigation of parent-child shared reading of digital personalized books. International Journal of Educational Research. 2021;105:101710. doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101710
19. Kucirkova N. Read this before you fall for a personalised book. OpenLearn, The Open University. 16 November 2020. open.edu
20. Kruse E, Faller I, Read K. Can Reading Personalized Storybooks to Children Increase Their Prosocial Behavior? Early Childhood Education Journal. 2021;49(2):273-282. eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1285761
21. Horst JS, Parsons KL, Bryan NM. Get the story straight: contextual repetition promotes word learning from storybooks. Frontiers in Psychology. 2011;2:17. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3111254
22. Read K. Clues cue the smooze: rhyme, pausing, and prediction help children learn new words from storybooks. Frontiers in Psychology. 2014;5:149. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24600431
23. Janssen X, Martin A, Hughes AR, Hill CM, Kotronoulas G, Hesketh KR. Associations of screen time, sedentary time and physical activity with sleep in under 5s: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2020;49:101226. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31778942
24. Pickard H, Chu P, Essex C, et al. Toddler Screen Use Before Bed and Its Effect on Sleep and Attention: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Pediatrics. 2024;178(12):1270-1279. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39432278
25. Madigan S, McArthur BA, Anhorn C, Eirich R, Christakis DA. Associations Between Screen Use and Child Language Skills: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics. 2020;174(7):665-675. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32202633
26. Strouse GA, O'Doherty K, Troseth GL. Effective coviewing: Preschoolers' learning from video after a dialogic questioning intervention. Developmental Psychology. 2013;49(12):2368-2382. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23544859