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To examine how screen time impacts children, certain variables will require attention. The first is the environment of the child because of it's critical role in brain development (Parke et al., 2019 pg.125). This means that if a child is from a third world country where television is not common or in the United States where a television is a must within a living room. The second variable to consider is the child's age. Are they at an age where an excessive amount of tv would adversely affect them. The third variable would would be the media being consumed and the amount of time spent in front of the devices. The best research method would be a randomized control trial in order to guarantee that the effects of of screen time are not the effects of some other environmental factor.

There are many ethical concerns when doing a study. The requirements are even more stringent when under-aged participants are involved. In order to to perform this experiment ethically, the parents would need to need to provided their informed consent. This type of consent means that the parents will not only sign the document butthey will informed every step of the process and they will be informed of the advantages and potential risks of the research. The anonymity of the children will need to be protected in order to safeguard the children's private information. Lastly there would need to be safeguards in place to mitigate any risks to the child during the experiment.