Is Screen Time Stealing Our Children’s Words?

Right now, kids have more interactive screen media and mobile devices surrounding them than ever before in history. Kids are now referred to as “digital natives” because they are growing up in our rapidly changing and evolving digital environment created by mobile devices. In 1970, children started to use screen media regularly at the age of four; today, infants are routinely accessing screen media at four months.

Electronic devices are changing children’s learning, communicating, and accessing information, but new research is raising questions about the long-term health implications of excessive screen time. Public health is becoming increasingly invested in this issue because of the associated risks of obesity, behavioural issues, sleep, and academic challenges.

The Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development cohort study found that a one-hour increase in TV exposure at age two was associated with a 7% unit drop in class participation and a 6% unit decline in fourth-grade math proficiency, which found a long-lasting correlation between cognitive abilities and early screen media exposure.

Increased screen time was linked to poorer academic performance, according to a Spanish study that found a negative correlation between screen media use and academic achievement. In a similar vein, a study carried out in the United States discovered a strong correlation between increased media multitasking and poorer results on standardised tests that gauge academic achievement in English and mathematics.

Read More: Virtual Autism Alert: Dangers of Excessive Screen Time for Your Toddlers’ Development

Human Interaction is the best way for babies to learn

One of the top brain scientists in the world, Patricia Kuhl, conducts research on over 4,000 infants annually. She points to multiple computerised brain scans and states, “What we’ve found is that little babies, under a year old, do not learn from a machine.” “The learning difference is remarkable, even if you show them engaging videos. A live human being can teach you brilliant things, but a machine can teach you nothing. 

Attention Spans are pilfered by Screens

If kids are to thrive, they will have to learn to concentrate and pay attention. This ability will start developing early in their lives when their brains are more in tune with their surroundings. A brain requires vital external stimuli in order to develop and grow. More significantly, they require time to assimilate those stimuli. Children’s attention span and focus are impacted by the continuous ingestion of images and messages on screens, even though reading aloud from storybooks allows them time to process words, images, and voices.

Screen Time Diminishes Impulse Control

Young children need boredom in their lives. It teaches impulse control and how to handle frustration. Young children who experience screens all the time lose out on the ability to be entertained by themselves or with others. And they start to lose the creativity and motivation to do so, and to become frustrated.

Screens Diminish Empathy

According to research, young children who spend too much time on screens are less able to learn social skills, read faces, and develop empathy. Young children learn to read body language and their caregiver’s face through face-to-face interactions only. “Until babies acquire language,” says Charles Nelson, a Harvard neuroscientist studying the effects of neglect on child brain development.

That exchange between child and adult care provider is so vital to the development of the brain. Screen time has consequences, and babies who have early exposure to screens or too much exposure fail to develop the ability to read human emotion and control their frustration. And they miss out on play and interaction with other children to build brainpower instead.

Read More: Virtual Autism: Too much screen time harmful for Child

What effects does a child’s screen time have on their education?

To a young child, every opportunity is new. Three-dimensional spaces and activities allow children to expand their inventory of knowledge of the world, because they must use all their senses to explore. This is a great deal more information than if they viewed a two-dimensional or digital example.

According to studies, children, particularly those under the age of two, learn more from watching videos than from listening to someone else teach them. They may become enthralled with the TV or video screen around the age of six months, but they typically don’t comprehend what they see until they are older than two. This does not mean they will not be captivated, but they will not be learning from an inexpensive pastime.

Children won’t learn how to stack blocks when they are glued to a screen. They will better understand early problem solving by manipulating the blocks and feeling the weight, materials, and working to successfully get one on top of the other. So, not only do we want to limit screen time, we also want to promote a child’s involvement in experiential learning through play with toys because this is early problem-solving and creativity.

Furthermore, there is proof that children who watch a lot of television during the early elementary school years may have attention issues and do worse on reading tests, according to Dr. Jennifer Cross.

Conclusion

Although the way children are using digital technologies to access information and entertainment has changed incredibly, the research is clear about the impact of excessive screen time on social and emotional development in children, particularly young children. For example, there is research around the relationship between high amounts of screen time and academic performance, attention difficulties, impulse control, and the potential to demonstrate empathy.

Young children, especially children under age two, learn from being in a real time and space with a real person, and through physical experiences rather than just viewing content. If we are interested in supporting healthy brain development, we need to encourage a turning away from screen time, history of exploration and play experiences with a face-to-face human interaction (i.e., talking with a person and about the process) and minimise screen time when they are very young.

Digital technologies need to be an important part of children’s lives, and we should thoughtfully promote play, storytelling, and talking adventures with a person, as these are important to children’s cognitive, social-emotional and moral development in a digitally mediated world.