"The median screen time per day was an hour and a half, but the range was from none to 12 hours."
I think that a parent that just stuffs a tablet into their young child's hands and then lets them use it for up to twelve hours was not ready to have kids: either emotionally or in terms of how they prioritize the various things in their lives. And in such (hopefully) extreme cases, all kinds of developmental problems would seem like the natural consequence. Kids need their parents. It is just that simple (and difficult, at times).
I don't think reading books is damaging to cognitive health, it's not a passive experience and requires significant energy. I think we'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who could disagree with the benefits of a child reading for multiple hours a day?
This is widely speculative but I think Cluster B disorders are result of poor parenting. In most cases, parents themselves were having the disorder and hence not able to take care of the kid properly and then the kid ends up becoming like a parent. It's a vicious circle.
Parents need to introspect a lot before parenting. They need to be aware of their weaknesses, complexes, where they lack and ensure the behaviour stemming from their issues is not affecting kids negativiely. But in an age where everyone is focussed on their work and getting ahead parenting is not taken seriously and is even outsourced to third party.
It's difficult to talk about this but it really fucks you up when your parents are fat and sit around watching TV all day.
I still don't know how to explain to other people what it's like or how I still struggle very hard today.
You don't develop an I or a tongue and other people there's nothing for them to hear.
I wonder if it’s actually the screens themselves, or the disengagement of the parent where screens fill the void?
Did TV do the same thing two decades ago?
TV was a lot more boring than the Internet. Even most 80s and 90s cable didn’t have so many channels that you could keep thinking that if you watched the schedule scroll by one more time you’d find something amazing, let alone OTA TV. If you wanted a movie you hadn’t already watched ten times, you had to drive somewhere. That kind of thing.
[edit] actually boring’s not right—it was just easier to know whether there was anything you wanted to watch on. With the Internet the answer is always “yes”, you just may not have found it yet.
My wife and I were watching videos by Dr Gabor Maté last night - he has some strong opinions on child development and addiction (inc. social media addiction). I'd highly recommend watching them if you are a parent.
This study had like 45 participants... how does one control for other variables with such a small population? Keep in mind ScreenQ is just a fancy name for a survey geared towards screen usage. It’s hard to think that income has something to do with this.
I grew up in a household where my sister and I were beneficiaries of a high earning father. My mother stayed home with us and never let us watch TV. Then my brother came along and when he was 3 and I was 7, my father lost his business. Almost overnight, our lives changed, and I recall walking home from school (this was surprisingly common in Queens in 1995) and immediately plopping down in front of the TV with my brother while both my parents worked.
It wasn’t until I had a child of my own when my mother told us how she painfully remembers having to make this choice: “we had no money, and we couldn’t afford a caretaker. On the one hand, we could have lived in worse conditions, and I would have bored you to death. On the other hand, there was 0% chance of vacations and showing you all various cultures- but with cable TV, you all had a better chance of acquiring culture.”
Conclusion: I didn’t get much screen time until about 7. My brother got a lot of it from 3. Let’s just say the data (n=3) shows that there is a positive correlation in cognitive development for the 1 of us who watched excessive TV around pre-school age vs. the others. I will never let my kids watch as much TV as my brother did when I was 3, but this is purely a function of money- I’m very fortunate to make good money and able to throw $60k a year on daycare + activities + nanny to provide entertainment away from the TV. By extension, Money is the causal factor.
A friend of mine who is a med school professor read the full paper and informed me that:
"There was no statistical significant association between ScreenQ and cognitive score when the analysis accounted for income."
I wonder if the journalists didn't read the full paper, or if they read it but decided to publish these two paragraphs, which give the impression that the physical results are tied to cognitive performance.
> After controlling for age, gender and income, the children with higher ScreenQ scores had lower measures of structural integrity and myelination, especially in tracts involved with language and literacy skills.
The researchers also tested the children cognitively, looking at measures of language and early literacy. The results of the cognitive tests correlated well with the children’s screen exposure; the children with higher screen exposure had poorer expressive language and did worse on tests of language processing speed, like rapidly naming objects.
Well the next question is: what is it about income that positively affects cognitive development? I doubt it's the smell or taste of dollar bills; more likely that money affords better parenting techniques, including but not limited to keeping your children's screen time limited.
Yep, the question these studies raise is: if you're doing things "right" in general (reading to your kids, taking them to museums/libraries, talking with them about complex things), does it really matter how much screen time they have?
There seems to be no proof that it matters that much, although I suspect that managing screen addiction becomes important at later ages. It's possible that letting kids have some screen time at younger ages, and teaching them from the get-go about the dangers of over-consumption/addiction, could end up being a very valuable parenting technique in the long run.
The elephant in the room is that there are differences in screentime. If one child grows up on DragonBox, Scratch, and Logo, and another watches cartoons and plays Jewel Candy Crush, it's really not the same.
For sure. I asked my med school professor friend about the differences between different types of screen time, and unfortunately neither he nor his twin brother (himself a neurosurgery professor) was able to say with any certitude which types of activities would be OK, or why certain activities would be more or less harmful.
Obviously the example you gave makes intuitive sense, but there doesn’t seem to be any research or other evidence to support it at this time.
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and argue that screentime probably does have an impact on one's mental development. Training a child's eyes to focus for long periods of time on a singular object a foot away might not translate well to functioning in the real world. Especially if that singular object is designed and engineered to hook and keep your attention, via Dark Patterns or via Hollywood-style screenwriting with jumpcuts.
That's probabaly the wrong causation. Instead, parents of higher intelligence, education and cultures that values education make more money - and not only pass on their genes, but also are more vigillent or capabale to educate their kids.
Or perhaps they have more time to spend with children, because they don't need to work three jobs, or failing that, can afford to have someone else spend time with their children.
Also, yes, there is a tie between income, education and culture, and it goes both ways. Starting one's life around cultured and educated people does help you grow into someone who has access to a better job, which gives you access to better education and culture, etc.
Researcher: Looks like we found it doesn't matter, that much!
Journalist: So it did matter?
Editor: What matters?
Heading: Something mattered
Intern: Finishes the blog
Me: Oh! Let me better click this.
Analytics: Clickbait works!
I wish there really was a real conspiracy rather than just mere incompetence and greed. I suppose what is established is screentime affects eyesight and that's about it.
I am very concerned when I see research like this.
I feel that unless it is funded to test 》10,000 participants, you wont arrive at a sensible conclusion because of the amount of variables involved.
I can imagine kids that get a lot of attention, play with other kids, etc, are going to spend less time in front of a screen. You might really just be measuring loneliness by proxy.
I also feel the tragedy is not money, its freedom. My parents were free to roam the whole village from the age of 8, would get into all kinds of trouble, 'borrow' and ride random horses they found in the field, etc. And that was normal.
These days kids often experience no freedom till late teens, or possibly university.
This is a well known phenomenon across the western world. You can easily find tons of research on the subject.
30 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 71.6 ms ] threadI think that a parent that just stuffs a tablet into their young child's hands and then lets them use it for up to twelve hours was not ready to have kids: either emotionally or in terms of how they prioritize the various things in their lives. And in such (hopefully) extreme cases, all kinds of developmental problems would seem like the natural consequence. Kids need their parents. It is just that simple (and difficult, at times).
I suspect my sister and I averaged close to 6 hours a day reading books up until the age of 14 or so. I wonder if it screwed us up.
I spent a lot of time reading as a kid, and very little time with others. Bad socialisation can cost you dearly.
Also was often reading in poorly lit areas, not great for eyesight.
Parents need to introspect a lot before parenting. They need to be aware of their weaknesses, complexes, where they lack and ensure the behaviour stemming from their issues is not affecting kids negativiely. But in an age where everyone is focussed on their work and getting ahead parenting is not taken seriously and is even outsourced to third party.
Forgive me if I'm way off here.
[edit] actually boring’s not right—it was just easier to know whether there was anything you wanted to watch on. With the Internet the answer is always “yes”, you just may not have found it yet.
If you take it away, would these people be eating fruit&veg, or would they be starving?
I grew up in a household where my sister and I were beneficiaries of a high earning father. My mother stayed home with us and never let us watch TV. Then my brother came along and when he was 3 and I was 7, my father lost his business. Almost overnight, our lives changed, and I recall walking home from school (this was surprisingly common in Queens in 1995) and immediately plopping down in front of the TV with my brother while both my parents worked.
It wasn’t until I had a child of my own when my mother told us how she painfully remembers having to make this choice: “we had no money, and we couldn’t afford a caretaker. On the one hand, we could have lived in worse conditions, and I would have bored you to death. On the other hand, there was 0% chance of vacations and showing you all various cultures- but with cable TV, you all had a better chance of acquiring culture.”
Conclusion: I didn’t get much screen time until about 7. My brother got a lot of it from 3. Let’s just say the data (n=3) shows that there is a positive correlation in cognitive development for the 1 of us who watched excessive TV around pre-school age vs. the others. I will never let my kids watch as much TV as my brother did when I was 3, but this is purely a function of money- I’m very fortunate to make good money and able to throw $60k a year on daycare + activities + nanny to provide entertainment away from the TV. By extension, Money is the causal factor.
Additionally, I don't understand the resulting outcome. Are you saying more tv was a negative or positive?
"There was no statistical significant association between ScreenQ and cognitive score when the analysis accounted for income."
I wonder if the journalists didn't read the full paper, or if they read it but decided to publish these two paragraphs, which give the impression that the physical results are tied to cognitive performance.
> After controlling for age, gender and income, the children with higher ScreenQ scores had lower measures of structural integrity and myelination, especially in tracts involved with language and literacy skills.
The researchers also tested the children cognitively, looking at measures of language and early literacy. The results of the cognitive tests correlated well with the children’s screen exposure; the children with higher screen exposure had poorer expressive language and did worse on tests of language processing speed, like rapidly naming objects.
Thank for digging up the article!
The guessing can continue, but the authors and the data in their small study says it pretty clearly: It's the income, guys!
There seems to be no proof that it matters that much, although I suspect that managing screen addiction becomes important at later ages. It's possible that letting kids have some screen time at younger ages, and teaching them from the get-go about the dangers of over-consumption/addiction, could end up being a very valuable parenting technique in the long run.
Obviously the example you gave makes intuitive sense, but there doesn’t seem to be any research or other evidence to support it at this time.
Also, yes, there is a tie between income, education and culture, and it goes both ways. Starting one's life around cultured and educated people does help you grow into someone who has access to a better job, which gives you access to better education and culture, etc.
Researcher: Looks like we found it doesn't matter, that much!
Journalist: So it did matter?
Editor: What matters?
Heading: Something mattered
Intern: Finishes the blog
Me: Oh! Let me better click this.
Analytics: Clickbait works!
I wish there really was a real conspiracy rather than just mere incompetence and greed. I suppose what is established is screentime affects eyesight and that's about it.
I feel that unless it is funded to test 》10,000 participants, you wont arrive at a sensible conclusion because of the amount of variables involved.
I can imagine kids that get a lot of attention, play with other kids, etc, are going to spend less time in front of a screen. You might really just be measuring loneliness by proxy.
I also feel the tragedy is not money, its freedom. My parents were free to roam the whole village from the age of 8, would get into all kinds of trouble, 'borrow' and ride random horses they found in the field, etc. And that was normal.
These days kids often experience no freedom till late teens, or possibly university.
This is a well known phenomenon across the western world. You can easily find tons of research on the subject.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children...