Dr. Frank Bures: Study warns about kids and technology
Should handheld electronic devices be banned for children? That was the subject of a very provocative article by an occupational therapist and child development expert from British Columbia. It was sent to us by one of our three sons, whose family has no television in the house, and no iPads, iPods, or i-whatevers.
As Grandma and Grandpa, we have a television in the house, and Grandma has an iPad, which she uses mostly to view children’s “apps” and occasionally email. Those parents feel strongly that only limited exposure is acceptable because of developmental learning issues.
The article is scholarly with many references to support the assertions, which others might feel are overblown and wrong. The author, Chris Rowan, substantiates her positions with the recommendations of both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Society of Pediatrics. These are that infants 2 and younger should have no exposure to technology, children ages 3 to 5 should be restricted to one hour each day, and children ages 6 to 18 should be restricted to two hours each day.
The author writes that children and youth use four to five times the suggested technological time (at least). Handheld devices have dramatically increased access to “screen time,” with some serious consequences.
Here’s a list of the points:
Brain development: A baby’s brain triples in size from birth to age 2. Overexposure to electronic devices has been shown to negatively affect “executive function” (thinking), cause attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsiveness and decreased self-control (tantrums).
Delayed development: One in 3 kids enters school developmentally delayed. Technology restricts movement, resulting in some delay, especially for children younger than 12.
Epidemic obesity: TV and video game use correlates with increased obesity. Kids permitted a device in their bedrooms are 30 percent more obese.
Sleep deprivation: About 75 percent of kids have technology in their bedrooms, which is not supervised by 60 percent of the parents. About 75 percent of kids age 9 to 10 are sleep deprived enough that it is detrimental to their grades.
Aggression: It is well documented that violent media content helps cause childhood aggression. The game Grand Theft Auto V shows murder, rape, torture, mutilation and explicit sex. And so do many movies and TV shows. The United States has categorized media violence as a public health risk.
Digital dementia: Decreased concentration and attention deficit result from the brain pruning neuron tracks to the frontal cortex, where much conscious thought occurs, due to high-speed media content exposure.
Addiction: A study showed that children became attached to devices, resulting in addiction, when their parents became detached from them because of their own technology usage. Another says 1 in 11 kids ages 8 to 18 are technologically addicted.
Mental illness: Technology overuse is incriminated in the rising rates of pediatric psychiatric diseases, such as depression, anxiety, attachment disorder, attention deficit, autism and bipolar disorder.
Radiation: The World Health Organization classified cellphones and other wireless devices as a possible carcinogen due to radiation emission. The American Academy of Pediatrics in 2013 requested a review of such radiation’s health effects.
Unsustainable: This one is tougher to to explain. It seems to imply technology exhausts methods of education.
The likely reaction of many is that this is impossible and ridiculous, at very least not possible to accomplish in our connected “twittering” generation.
There are 242 responses to Rowan’s writing and her replies that can’t fit in this limited space. But one exchange noted that young people need technology exposure in order to learn to use it. In many schools, they certainly do get it. Yet, several people in the information technology profession wrote they never had childhood training, received it later in life, and made it theirs without getting “behind”.
By now we all have seen certain kids totally immersed in a pad, a pod or ear buds of some brand. You have to wonder what imprinting on their sponge-like, impressionable brains and thoughts is taking place. As a member of the TV generation, we were supposed to be “lost” because of it. At my college graduation (right after the Great Flood), the speaker talked about “desiccated minds wandering through the wasteland of TV.”
It may have been true, may still be true, but the wasteland has expanded to a universe. You be the judge. Hope you don’t mind actually reading this in print.
Frank A. Bures is a semiretired dermatologist in Winona.
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