By: Noah Bryant-Hooper
Have you ever seen a toddler just staring into an iPad without a care in the world?
In an ever-so growing technological age, children are being exposed to all kinds of games and media increasingly as time goes on. Although the development of technology has dramatically enhanced our society and benefited the world in many ways, children are being hurt developmentally between the ages of two and five, which is a pivotal duration for learning and brain development. Children at these ages learn things through physical play and the world around them, and screens could be limiting the amount of real-world learning that these children are experiencing.
In a recent November 2021 study published by Language in India, Felix Ferly (Assistant Professor in language speech and hearing), Govind Arund (researcher at MASLP in India), Dr. Kumaraswamy Satish (PHD in speech and hearing), Anad Aswanti (researcher at BASLP in India), Sameeha Fathima (Researcher at BASLP), and Fida Fathima (researcher at BASLP), gathered a small group of young children to figure out how certain amounts of screen time affect their brain. The overall goal of this study consisted of finding out if there was any brain effect from screen time for children in the age range of two to five years old. Specifically, they wanted to examine children who had more than two to three hours of screen time a day.
The method in which the researchers did this involved the gathering of ten children in the specified age range with the participation of caretakers to monitor their technology usage over the course of a week before the children were brought in for the study. All the children in the study were exposed to screens for between two and five hours and researchers would examine the time differences and how the children would react to certain activities given to them. Within these activities, the children were asked to do certain tasks that involved shapes, colors, and the alphabet. Once the children were taken in, each child was given two minutes to complete each task put in front of them. What the researchers analyzed specifically was each child’s working memory by recording the amount of time it took each child to complete the task within that two-minute span. Ultimately, they would take these times and compare them to the recorded screen time throughout the week to see if there was any correlation between screen time, and the Childrens’ working memory.
After comparing the data, the researchers concluded that children who were exposed to more screen time throughout the week had slower reaction times in the activities given to them. Although this study runs parallel to a lot of other studies done regarding young children and the affect screen usage has on their brain, this study does not have a large enough sample size to produce valid conclusions. If the study had more children, the researchers would still probably come to the same conclusion, but they would have more data to work with and find more things that they did not know before. A larger study that runs parallel to this one is a recent 2019 study published by JAMA Pediatrics and conducted by John Hutton MD, Johnothan Dudley PhD, and Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus. In this larger study they concluded that “increased use of screen-based media in the context of the AAP guidelines was associated with lower microstructural integrity of brain white matter tracts that support language, executive functions, and emergent literacy skills, controlling for child age and household income. Screen use was also associated with lower scores on corresponding behavioral measures, controlling for age” (Hutton et. Al 2019). Expanding more on how this study is larger, it examines forty-seven children along their household income, whereas the last study examined just ten children without any socioeconomic context. Although too much screen time is proven to be detrimental to the development of children, there is such a thing as the right amount of screen time that can lead to positive impacts in the brain development of young children. An even larger 2017 study in South Korea published by the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport conducted by Eun-Young Lee, John Spence, and Valerie Carson (all researchers at the University of Alberta), discovered “Findings support emerging evidence that PA and specific types of sedentary behavior have positive impacts on brain development during early childhood. Furthermore, engaging in different types of behavior more frequently with caregivers, regardless of type, may be important for brain development” (Lee et. Al 2017). Along with the discovery that physical activity and moderate doses of television with a caregiver can be beneficial, the study proves to be more reliable than the original one mentioned as it examines one-thousand-eight-hundred and seventy children, which is noticeably higher than the other two studies.
As far as the next steps for the researchers who conducted the study in India, they should examine more children in their study along with socioeconomic factors and how that might relate to screen usage. If this is done, then their findings will be more widespread as they will be able to make more connections along with the information gathered that already runs parallel to a lot of the studies done regarding this topic. Overall, this is a very important topic as the next upcoming generations will only be exposed to even more technology than there already is. It is pivotal to the next generation and society to investigate this topic even more thoroughly than it already has been due to society needing these kids to push our world forward. If brain development continues to get stunted in these young children, it might influence what our future as a society will look like as a whole. Hopefully more research will come about regarding this topic as there is still more room for findings in this field. After reading this, hopefully people will think more about a child having technology at such a young age, or maybe people will second guess the amount of screen time they will give your kids when they are young, because the next generation is bright, and it needs to be protected at all costs.
Bibliography
Felix F, Govind A, Kumaraswamy S, Anand A, Fathima D, Sameeha F, Fida F. 2021. Impact of Screen Time with Children 2-5 Years A Pilot Study. Language in India. [Accessed 2022 Sep. 5]; Vol21(11): 24-30. https://web.s.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=e068e67f-a4d8-4c18-bffb-6710978d6178%40redis.
Hutton J, Dudley J, Horowitz- Kraus T. 2019. Associations Between Screen-Based Media Use and Brain White Matter Integrity in Preschool-Aged Children. JAMA Pediatrics. [accessed Sep. 5 2022]; https://jamanetwork-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2754101. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.3869.
Lee E, Spence J, Carson V. 2017. Television viewing, reading, physical activity and brain development among young South Korean children. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. [accessed Sep 5 2022]; 20(10): 672-677. https://www-sciencedirect-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/science/article/pii/S1440244017302487?via%3Dihub.
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