Children who spend too long in front of TVs, computers or playing video games are likely to suffer a sharp fall in their ability to show empathy to other people, an expert on child-rearing has warned.

Speaking at an Iona Institute event, Dr Aric Sigman, cited a meta-study by the University of Michigan which found that compared with 30 years ago, young people in America have suffered a very big drop in feelings of empathy, with the biggest fall happening since 2000.

In the last ten years there has been a huge increase in the use of social media such as Facebook.

Dr Sigman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and author mostly recently of ‘The Spoilt Generation’.

His topic at the Iona Institute event in the Alexander Hotel was ‘The Spoilt Generation and what to do about it’.

He told the audience of 120 that in the UK 11-15 year olds spend an average of seven and a half hours in front of a screen, far more than they spend with their parents.

He also cited studies showing the young children who spend long hours in day-care tend to have higher levels of stress than those who do not and that this can persist into their teenage years.

He said that studies such as these tend to be ignored by the media whose primary concern is to ensure that working mothers are not made to feel guilty because their children are in day-care.

He acknowledged that many women have no choice but to put their children in day-care.

However, he said there seemed to be no equivalent concern about how stay-at-home mothers are made to feel when they are told that it makes no difference to baby whether it is raised at home by its biological mother, or by strangers in a day-care institution.

He stressed the need for parents to set down clear boundaries for their children saying this makes for happier and healthier children.