Do educational apps and shows teach young children anything? Or is it just more screen time 3 to 5 years?

What the evidence says

The short answer is: it depends on what your child is watching or playing, not just how much time they spend on screens. Good educational shows and apps really can teach preschoolers things, but low-quality content mostly just fills time.

The Canadian Paediatric Society says that for children 2 to 5 years old, well-designed, age-appropriate content with a clear teaching goal can help with early language and literacy. They also warn that too much screen time overall means fewer chances for hands-on learning and real conversations, which are still the best way young children learn.

A big review that combined 36 studies with over 4,000 young children found a real, measurable learning benefit from touchscreen apps, though how much a child learned depended on their age and the type of app. Long-running shows built with education researchers, like Sesame Street, have also been studied in 15 countries and found to genuinely help kids learn things like counting, letters, and understanding the world around them.

One trick that works well is watching or playing together. When a parent sits with their child and talks about what's happening on screen, kids learn vocabulary and story understanding just as well as they do from reading a book together. Apps that respond to the child, rather than just play a video, also seem to help more than passive watching.

So educational apps and shows aren't automatically "just screen time." But they aren't magic either. The label matters less than whether the content has a real teaching goal, whether it's age-appropriate, and whether a grown-up is involved. Canadian guidance suggests keeping routine screen use to about an hour a day or less for this age group, and choosing quality over quantity.