Rush to digitalize toddlers risks Internet
addiction
By: Devra Davis
Posted: 08/1/2013
1:00 AM |
More suited to a sci-fi flick than
reality, a startling epidemic of young people with smartphone-addled brains is
on the rise, and the long-term consequences might be far worse than you or I
could imagine.
Reporting one in five students is addicted
to their smartphone, South Korea, the world's most tech-savvy nation, is
aggressively tackling the problem, establishing more than 100
Internet-addiction camps.
As the number of young smartphone users
escalates around the globe, educating children and parents about the effects of
this increasingly prevalent drug of the future is imperative.
South Korean medical researchers released
a recent report that illuminates the experiment in which we are all unwitting
participants.
Neuroscientists there reported a rise in
digital dementia -- the tendency of the young to be so obsessed with
smartphones they can't remember phone numbers, produce legible handwriting or
look people in the eye, all signs of a type of brain damage.
In a nation where 20 per cent of 10- to
19-year-olds spend seven hours a day on smartphones and tablets, exposures are
the highest in the world and reports of lopsided brain development are
increasing.
According to the Korean Ministry of
Science, the country has more digital devices than people, with many children
beginning to use devices as toddlers.
Psychiatrist Dr. Byun Gi-Won, of the
Balance Brain Center in Seoul, South Korea, explained, "Young people who
are heavy technology users are likely to have a properly developed left
hemisphere of the brain while the right hemisphere will be unused and
underdeveloped."
The Atlantic Monthly reported that in
Korea, a cottage industry of Internet-addiction treatment centres has surfaced.
Meanwhile in the U.S., parents are giving
young children cellphones as toys. The Los Angeles School District, along with
many others, is making multimillion-dollar commitments to the use of wireless
digital devices, and Google has "gifted" the city of San Francisco
Wi-Fi for major public parks.
These expansive growths of wireless are
taking place with no thought about the long-term impact this can have on
developing brains, bodies and babies that are growing up in a sea of
radio-frequency radiation -- also known as microwave radiation -- that is
without precedent in human history.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the
group I head, Environmental Health Trust, have long advocated that children
need more lap time than screen time.
If digital devices must be used to
distract a toddler on a long car trip, put them on airplane mode and make sure
they remain disconnected from Internet or Wi-Fi. Most tips for reducing usage come
down to one simple notion -- distance is your friend and time is your enemy.
Keep calls and connection times as short as possible.
Look around you these days. Young parents
are glued to their phones while strolling with their toddlers -- some of whom are
also zoned into their own electronic devices. Watch youngsters turn crestfallen
when a caregiver shifts from playing with them to answer a text or call. See
families seated at dinner tables, each immersed in their own screen.
When we strip away from our lives all the
electronified trappings and stuff with which we are so preoccupied; when we
throw away all those things we now crave and believe we need, what is left is
what essentially makes us human.
The rush to digitize toddlers and young
children flies in the face of what developmental psychologists have long
understood. Children learn best by direct human touch and eye contact -- from
real people not machines.
Devra Davis, PhD, is an award-winning
author and scientist. She is president of Environmental Health Trust, a
non-profit research and policy organization, based in Jackson, Wyo.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press
print edition August 1, 2013 A11
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/rush-to-digitalize-toddlers-risks-internet-addiction-217881311.html
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