Photo from the University of Albany: A line of young children in a classroom focused on technology.
By Raelynn Harris ’25
In the present time, technology aids us with everything: work, school entertainment; but good things can become bad depending on when it is used and how often, for example, small children have access to phones. This information comes from a study that took place in 2019 about first-time cell phone ownership of children in the United States: 9% of children aged from one to two years old, 3.1% of children aged three to four years old, 5.5% of children aged five to six, 11.4% of children aged seven to eight, 19.2% of children aged nine to ten owned phones; do you think these numbers have grown? (Taylor).
Technology negatively manipulates and affects a child’s brain by offsetting their cognitive, emotional, and social development. Technology permanently scars a child’s brain both physically and in how it functions in the future. To prevent this, parents should follow the research-backed recommendations about limits for children on technology.
Technology negatively affects and offsets a child’s brain through their cognitive development, language development and literacy, social development, and emotional development. There is proof of this: “Some studies associate prolonged TV viewing with lower cognitive abilities, especially related to short-term memory, early reading and math skills and language development” (Canadian Paediatric Society, Digital Health Task Force, Ottawa, Ontario).
In relation to offsetting cognitive development, more screen time and less reading time can result in decreased brain connectivity between regions controlling word recognition and both language and cognitive control. There’s proof of this, too: in a study by Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus and John S. Hutton on children ages eight to twelve: “More screen and less reading time were associated with decreased brain connectivity between regions controlling word recognition and both language and cognitive control. Such connections are considered important for reading comprehension and suggest a negative impact of screen time on the developing brain. Structurally, increased screen time relates to decreased integrity of white-matter pathways necessary for reading and language” (Small et al.).
Not only does more screen time result in decreased brain connectivity between regions controlling word recognition and both language and cognitive control, but it also negatively affects how children learn and gain skills.
If technology is used to teach children something, they are likely to develop a video deficit, video deficit is a well-researched effect in which children don’t learn as well from information or instructions through a screen as they do from a person in front of them; live demonstrations work better when it comes to teaching infants and young children because using videos to teach children can put a damper on how they understand the world around them and development: “Infants and toddlers may spend more time completing tasks and display poorer performance when using information gained from screens” (Jing and Kirkorian).
Screen time, including video gaming, can be harmful as well, depending on the content; fast-paced and violent content negatively impacts executive function, and that increases as time goes by (Canadian Paediatric Society, Digital Health Task Force, Ottawa, Ontario).
Excessive screen time is related to poor language development and behavioral problems in a large number of children, young children, and infants, and there have been several studies that have shown associations between excessive screen time in early childhood with language delay (Karki and Sravanti). A study was conducted by Jenny S. Radesky and Dimitri A. Christakis including children under the age of two that spent more than one hour a day in front of a screen, by the time they reached age three, the amount of screen time was more than three hours that showed with increased screen time there were results of poorer language development in a large number of minority children; as well as poorer language development and executive functioning in very young children: “In infants, increased screen time was one of several factors that predicted behavioral problems. For infants 6 to 12 months, increased screen time was linked to poorer early language development” (Small et al.).
Technology negatively affecting language development and behavioral development can also harm the bonding between parents and their children.
Screen time can disrupt parent-child interactions, and can cause significant issues with social and emotional development. A clear example of this was shown in a study of Thai infants, the infants showed that “excess TV exposure from 6 to 18 months of age was associated with emotional reactivity, aggression, and externalization behaviors. From our experience in clinical settings, very often children between 2 to 4 years are brought with concerns of speech delay and poor social interaction” (Karki and Sravanti).
Even if using e-books can increase children’s reading engagement, using technology to teach children how to read and gain other cognitive skills isn’t very effective because e-books can disrupt a child’s ability to comprehend the world around them and can offset development: “Parents appear to use fewer reading strategies during these interactions. Further, e-book sound effects and animation can interfere with story comprehension and event sequencing in preschoolers, when compared with paper books” (Canadian Paediatric Society, Digital Health Task Force, Ottawa, Ontario). Not only does technology damage children’s cognitive skills but it also damages how long a child can have a fixed focus.
Long periods of television exposure during early childhood cause problems with attention problems in adolescents. There is research with patterns that have suggested that there are negative effects of watching television before the age of three which can lead to cognitive issues later on. Another study suggested that one extra hour of television before the age of one led to a 28% increase in the probability of having attentional issues at age seven, with similar effect sizes for the amount of television watched at age 3 on inattention later in childhood (Gottschalk).
The long-term effects of excessive technology use can both damage the brain and the body. Some examples include that computer use is related to musculoskeletal soreness, mobile phones can also be related to eye strain and in adults, radiofrequency exposure and brain cancer and different head tumors, and internet and gaming addictions relate the loss of atrophy, or tissue volume in gray matter areas, gray matter is a type of tissue in your brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) that plays a crucial role in allowing you to function normally day to day (Cleveland Clinic). Loss of atrophy can be very dangerous for children to have, especially because it interferes with being able to function. For example, “Multiple studies have shown atrophy (loss of tissue volume) in grey matter areas in internet/gaming addiction” (Das et al.). In a matter also related to other interference of how the body behaves, computer use in school and at home is related to musculoskeletal soreness (Harris et al., 2015). A survey of Australian children in 2000 proves that “60% of respondents reported discomfort associated with laptop use, and 61% reported the same when carrying their laptop” (Harris and Straker, 2000). The risks of excessive computer use include: “symmetrical sustained posture of the lower extremities and holding a posture for more than one minute, might be higher contributing factors to postural risks, as well as using a tablet versus a laptop which might result in more sustained neck flexion (Ciccarelli et al., 2015). “More recent evidence also suggests increase in neck symptoms being related to television, phone, and tablet use, and visual symptoms related to increased use of phones and tablets in particular” (Gottschalk).
In the present time, there has been a rise in mobile phone use and creation, which is linked to musculoskeletal problems, eyestrain, and sleep disturbance. There is also evidence that a higher risk of certain types of cancer like glioma, cancer of the glial cells in the brain or spine, is related to increased phone use (Gottschalk).
Limits on screen time can stop the brain and body from being negatively affected permanently, this causes problems later on that can’t be reversed because of the amount of damage that already occurred.
Through technology and excess screen time, a child’s brain could be scarred. This statement counts for both the functions and the brain itself.
Parents should follow the research-backed recommendations about limits for children’s screen time. Overall, screen time for young children should be limited to being able to communicate with other family members that are distanced, or for educational purposes. In relation to infants eighteen to twenty-four, there’s a suggestion that; “Screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver.” For children younger than eighteen months, there is a suggestion of, “Until 18 months of age limit screen use to video chatting along with an adult.” For children 2-5, limit non-educational screen time to about 1 hour per weekday and 3 hours on weekend days (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry).
Limits from parents on technology do not necessarily need to be placed due to the fact that every family is different. Also, there’s only a small percentage of 24% of adolescents that believe technology affects them negatively while they are the most affected by technology out of everyone in a common household. In total, 31% believe the effects are mostly positive, and 45% believe the effects are neutral (Dienlin and Johannes), those thoughts are incorrect. To counter the statistics of 24% of adolescents believing that technology affects them negatively, they associated it with causing more harm and lasting longer than those who associated technology with positive things in their life (Dienlin and Johannes). There’s also the fact that digital technology only gives happiness in a limited amount of time, “Digital technology use has stronger effects on short-term markers of hedonic well-being (eg, negative affect) than long-term measures of eudaimonic well-being (eg, life satisfaction)” (Dienlin and Johannes).
Although every household is different, all children need limits on technology based on their negative effects. By placing limits on technology, parents are helping their children from the loss of development as well as improving how a child’s brain will function later in life. Overall, technology without limits proves to cause more harm than good.
Having access to technology at a young age and without limits can negatively impact a child’s brain development, whether emotional, cognitive, or social, but likely all three. Access to technology without limits can permanently scar the brain itself or parts of the brain that relate to how it functions. We need to prevent this, and we need to prevent it now.
The Raider Press 