Timothy Birdnow

These gadgets give instant gratification and do nothing to promote actual thinking, so it's little wonder. I fear for the future; young people have no attention span whatsoever. I've seen them texting while in the same room! They are overloaded with sensory stimuli while not having any way of processing. We are conducting an experiment in brain formation, and it's a dangerous thing.

Smartphones, tablets causing mental health issues in kids as young as two

From the article:

The researchers analysed data provided by the parents of more than 40,000 US children aged two to 17 for a nationwide health survey in 2016. The questionnaire asked about the youngsters' medical care, any emotional, developmental or behavioural issues and their daily screen time.

Adolescents spending more than seven hours a day on screens are twice as likely to have been diagnosed with anxiety or depression as those who spent an hour. Links between screen time and wellbeing are stronger among adolescents than young children, the study found.

Professor Twenge said: "At first, I was surprised the associations were larger for adolescents. However, teens spend more time on their phones and on social media, and we know from other research that these activities are more strongly linked to low wellbeing than watching television and videos, which is most of younger children's screen time."

Even moderate use of four hours is also associated with lower psychological well-being than one hour a day.

So if you want stupid and depressed kids, give them a smartphone or a tablet and leave 'em be!

Children and teenagers are still wiring their brains, and they are much more prone to environmental factors driving that brain architecture. This is THE critical time for brain development, and we are allowing this time to be stolen by an electronic monster that is not only teaching values we likely disagree with but also is changing our kid's perception of reality. It is a dangerous trend.

Pre-schoolers, or under fives, who are high users are twice as likely to often lose their temper – and are 46 per cent more prone to not be able to calm down when excited.

Among 14 to 17 year olds, more than four in ten (42.2 per cent) of those in the study who spent more than seven hours a day on screens did not finish tasks.

About one in eleven (9 per cent) of 11 to 13-year-olds who spent an hour with screens daily were not curious or interested in learning new things.

End Excerpt.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:30 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 463 words, total size 4 kb.