Study: Most Kids Are Using Smartphones And Tablets By The Time They're 2 Years Old

SAN DIEGO, CA (CBS) – Babies are now swiping and scrolling on tablets and smartphones before they can walk.

That's according to new research from the Einstein Health Network, which also revealed that by one year old, one in seven toddlers is using tablets for at least an hour a day.

Researchers say they had parents of children between six months and four-years-old fill out a 20 question survey on when their kids were first exposed to mobile media and how they used devices like smartphones and tablets.

Fifty-two percent of kids younger than one had watched television, 36 percent had touched or scrolled on a screen, 24 percent had called someone, 15 percent had used apps and 12 had percent played video games.

"We didn't expect children were using the devices from the age of 6 months," said the study's lead author Hilda Kabali, MD. "Some children were on the screen for as long as 30 minutes."

What's more, by the age of two, most of the children were using mobile devices, and 26 percent of two-year-olds spent more than an hour a day staring at a screen.

Researchers say the study's participants were parents at a hospital-based pediatric clinic that "serves a low-income, minority community." Of the 370 parents, 74 percent were African American, 14 percent were Hispanic and 13 percent had less than a high school education.

Dr. Kabali is slated to present the research at this month's Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego on April 25th, 2015.