GUSTO screen study: what it measured and today’s screen guidance under 18 months

If your baby is under 18 months and you have seen the headlines about a Singapore screen-and-brain study, the useful answer comes in two parts. The study measured a pattern of differences across one group of families, which is not proof that screens caused harm. And the advice that applies to your baby today did not wait for that study: MOH first published its screen guidance in March 2023 and updated it in January 2025, advising no screen use below 18 months except interactive video chatting, with no background television. ^{[1] [2]}

It helps to separate two questions that the coverage runs together. What a study measured at 12, 18 and nine months is worth understanding precisely, so that you can weigh it as evidence rather than as a verdict on the feeds, walks and settles your family has already had.

What the GUSTO study measured

The Straits Times reported on 20 September 2026 on work from the GUSTO cohort (Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes), a long-term project that tracks mothers and children from pregnancy onwards. At 12 months, researchers asked the parents of about 500 babies how much time their babies spent with screens on weekdays and weekends, then split the children into four groups: under an hour, one to two hours, two to four hours, and more than four hours a day. Television counted, the report says, because a TV is a digital display that emits light, motion and sound, capturing a toddler's attention like a phone or tablet. ^[3]

At 18 months the same children wore an electrode cap for electroencephalograms, and that finding was published in JAMA Pediatrics in 2023. The report describes infants with high daily screen time as showing disproportionately stronger theta than beta waves while awake. At nine, the children sat the NEPSY-II, a neuropsychological test of executive function covering attention, memory and self-control, and the earlier pattern held: as screen exposure increased, difficulties with attention and executive functioning were greater. Those four bands group families for research; they are not an official limit. ^[3]

What the pattern does and does not show

Start with the ministry's own framing. In January 2025, the Minister for Health said MOH first issued its screen guidance in March 2023, 'when we started to see a signal and correlation between screen use and cognitive development and executive functions of young kids'. A signal and correlation is not proof of cause. The Grow Well SG release launched the same day says local cohort studies including GUSTO and the Singapore Longitudinal Early Development Study (SG LEADS) informed the strategy, which focuses on children up to 12 years old to start. ^{[2] [4]}

Evelyn Law, who specialises in developmental and behavioural paediatrics at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, said the findings add to the evidence that excessive screen time is linked to differences in brain development and learning from a very young age. The researchers offer one explanation: a bombardment of fast movement, sound and scene changes can leave few resources for the brain to build self-regulation skills. A separate GUSTO study in Psychological Medicine in 2024 found that parent-child reading at age three acted as a buffer against some of those brain changes. What is described is a pattern within one cohort, grouped by what parents reported. ^[3]

The current official line for babies under 18 months

The January 2025 update is the operative wording. The Minister for Health advised that children below 18 months should have zero screen time — 'no handphones, tablets, including TVs, and video games' — including background screen use such as a television left on during meals and daily routines, and called this stronger than the previous guidance. From 18 months to six years, screen use outside school is capped at one hour at most, with no screens while eating or before bedtime. HealthHub's parent pages restate the 2025 bands and define screen time as time on computers, tablets, smartphones, television, video or hand-held games. ^{[1] [2]}

HPB's Childhood Health Behaviours Checklist, dated February 2025, asks whether parents avoid giving their child any screen time from smartphones, tablets, laptops and television — including during feeds or meals, before bed and any time the child is awake — and tells parents to exclude interactive video chatting. A second question asks about background screen use, defined as a television or device showing content in the background that distracts even when the child is not watching. The checklist is used at Childhood Developmental Screening visits for children aged 0 to 6. ^{[5] [6] [4]}

Preschools operate under a separate document: ECDA's revised Code of Practice, effective from 1 February 2025, specifies no screen use for infants up to 18 months and screens only for teaching and learning purposes from 18 months to six years. ^{[5] [6] [4]}

Optional edits around your own phone

Two things in the report are about you rather than about a screen handed to a baby. Law said occasional phone use by parents is normal and not harmful to children, especially when parents know how to re-engage with the baby and repair the connection. She also described back-and-forth exchanges as serve-and-return interactions that need no special knowledge or training: 'It's just you and your baby or child having fun and responding to each other.' ^[3]

Optional suggestions, not a tested routine, and none promises an outcome: HealthHub advises turning off background television and playing music or an audio book instead, limiting your own phone use because children model what they see, and keeping screen-free zones such as the dining table. The decisive answer is simpler than the headlines. The GUSTO work measured a brainwave pattern at 18 months and an executive-function pattern at nine across exposure groups in one cohort — worth knowing, not proof of harm. The line that applies to your baby today already exists: no screen use under 18 months except interactive video chatting, no background TV, and modest limits on your own phone during feeds and settles where that suits your family. ^{[1] [2]}

Sources

EduNanny Editorial · AI-assisted research and writing, reviewed by our automated editorial team. Sources checked 2026-10-09. Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration.