--- title: iPads Act as Sedatives for Kids Before Surgery description: A new study reports that iPads helped lessen a child's anxiety before surgery as much as sedatives. canonical: https://time.com/4472306/its-official-ipads-are-sedatives-for-kids/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-30T14:29:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:50:26.425Z article:section: Health og:title: It's Official: iPads Are Sedatives for Kids og:description: No parents will be surprised by this one. og:url: https://time.com/4472306/its-official-ipads-are-sedatives-for-kids/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafc125eb1f452a81/6988a429a988ca3dc76b93e1/ipad.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5079 og:image:height: 2857 og:image:alt: Tablet pc, empty blank screen on office table desk with og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It's Official: iPads Are Sedatives for Kids twitter:description: No parents will be surprised by this one. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafc125eb1f452a81/6988a429a988ca3dc76b93e1/ipad.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # It's Official: iPads Are Sedatives for Kids > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 30, 2016 2:29 PM UTC  Office table desk with set of colorful supplies, white blank note pad, cup, pen, pc, crumpled paper, flower on blue background. Top view and copy space for text. Office table desk with set of colorful supplies, white blank note pad, cup, pen, pc, crumpled paper, flower on blue background. Top view and copy space for text.Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 30, 2016 2:29 PM UTC As many parents know, the secret to getting a child to relax can sometimes mean simply handing them an iPad. Apparently, that move has a scientific basis, too. According to a small new study, giving children who were about to undergo surgery an iPad was as effective at calming them down as giving them a sedative. In the report, which was presented at the [World Congress of Anaesthesiologists](http://wca2016.com/) in Hong Kong, researchers compared the effect of using an iPad to taking a sedative called midazolam on children’s anxiety before anesthesia and surgery. The kids, who were between the ages of 4 and 10, were randomly assigned to either take the sedative or play with an iPad—they could play games like Angry Birds and Monster Dash—20 minutes before they were given anesthesia [**_Quiz: Are You Ready for Back to School?_**](http://time.com/4457305/back-to-school-quiz/) The researchers measured the children’s anxiety at several different points throughout the day of surgery, including arrival at the hospital and when they were separated from their parents. The researchers also measured the parents’ satisfaction with the child’s procedure. They found that parent and child’s anxiety levels were similar between both groups, and parents were more satisfied with the experience when their child was given an iPad. The study authors suggest that using electronic tablets could be a way to reduce stress before surgeries without medication. The study size was very small with only 112 kids, but it’s not the first to suggest that distraction through technology could play a role in improved medical experiences. As [TIME recently reported](http://time.com/4465747/can-virtual-reality-help-people-manage-pain/), some hospitals and pain clinics are embracing virtual reality as a way to lower pain by distracting people with animations and virtual worlds. Though the method is still being explored, researchers suggest that people can only focus on a couple things at a time, and that distracting them can take their mind away from the anxiety-inducing procedure at hand. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4472306/its-official-ipads-are-sedatives-for-kids/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4472306/its-official-ipads-are-sedatives-for-kids/"},"headline":"It's Official: iPads Are Sedatives for Kids","datePublished":"2016-08-30T14:29:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:50:26.425Z","description":"New research suggests playing games on an iPad helps reduce kids' anxiety before surgery","url":"https://time.com/4472306/its-official-ipads-are-sedatives-for-kids/","keywords":["Surgery","Tech","Children","Apple","Anxiety","kids","iPad"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafc125eb1f452a81/6988a429a988ca3dc76b93e1/ipad.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafc125eb1f452a81/6988a429a988ca3dc76b93e1/ipad.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Tablet pc, empty blank screen on office table desk with","caption":"Tablet pc, empty blank screen on office table desk with","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/surgery/","name":"Surgery"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4472306/its-official-ipads-are-sedatives-for-kids/","name":"It's Official: iPads Are Sedatives for Kids"}}]}] ```