WASHINGTON  -   A recent study showed that TV remained the most used media device of young children in the United States other than smart devices nowadays. “Our findings were surprising as it feels like mobile devices are omnipresent, but televisions are still the most common way for young children to consume media,” said Weiwei Chen, one of the authors of the study.

Researchers studied related mobile device usage data in the country from 1997 to 2014, and found that the average screen time of children up to 2 years old increased from 1.3 hours to 3 hours per day.

Published Monday in the latest issue of JAMA Pediatrics, the research letter also mentioned that children between 3 and 5 spent about 2.5 hours on screens per day, which remained level in the studied time period.

wNoting that further studies are needed, researchers warned parents about the trend and called for carefully designed media use plan for their children.

The 2016 media use guidance published by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended  2- to 5-year-old children use digital media for no more than 1 hour per day.