How much screen time is appropriate - by age?

What the evidence says

For babies under 2, Canadian and international guidelines agree: skip screen time altogether, except for the occasional video chat with a distant family member. Between ages 2 and 5, the recommendation is to keep routine or recreational screen use under 1 hour a day, and to make sure sedentary screen time isn't a regular part of daycare either. Once kids reach school age, the Canadian Paediatric Society has moved away from giving a strict hour cap and instead focuses on four principles for families: manage screen use with a family media plan, choose meaningful/quality content, model healthy habits yourself, and monitor for signs screens are crowding out sleep, activity, or in-person relationships.

An older Canadian guideline for ages 5-17 suggested capping recreational screen time at 2 hours a day, and many clinicians still use that as a rough benchmark, but it's no longer the headline recommendation. The World Health Organization's guideline for children under 5 lines up closely with Canada's: no screens under 1 year, and no more than an hour a day (less is better) from 1 to 5 years. The US American Academy of Pediatrics is similar for young children but, like the CPS, no longer gives a fixed hour limit for children 6 and older, instead encouraging individualized family media plans.

Worth knowing: most Canadian children exceed these limits in real life, so if your child is over, that's very common. The goal isn't perfection but making sure screens aren't displacing sleep, physical activity, and face-to-face time.