Power Down & Parent Up! by Holli Kenley

Author:Holli Kenley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Loving Healing Press

Brain Damage and Cognitive Effects

Although researchers are in agreement that more needs to be done in the area of brain damage and cognitive effects due to screen exposure, studies over the past several years provide us with a window into the seriousness in this area of consequence. For the purposes of “Power Down & Parent Up”, we will touch upon them briefly. I encourage parents/guardians to expand their knowledge by reading any of the experts referenced in the bibliography.

1. Response to Reward

Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to walk away from a slot machine? Have you ever felt a surge of adrenaline when you are exercising and thought you could go on forever? Have you experienced a rush when your post, tweet, text or upload received tons of likes, shares, or retweets? Have you or your children had a difficult time turning off a video game, wanting to achieve that allusive goal or score? If you answered yes to any of the above, please know, you are not alone!

Our brains are hard-wired to respond to reward. And we know one of the most powerful ways of keeping us hooked to a game, or checking our social sites, or constantly texting, or whatever the habitual behavior may be is to provide intermittent, random, or scheduled positive reinforcement. Whether we are engaging in a behavior or a consuming a substance, when our brains’ reward pathways are activated, we want to continue. Although it may seem harmless at first to spend hours playing games or interacting on our screens, as our brains become conditioned to receiving those dopamine surges, we will want to return to them because it makes us feel good. Thus, whether it is in a video game, on a social site, or almost any on-line behavior, product developers are purposely designing them to keep us coming back. In a recent article, “Tristan Harris Believes Silicon Valley Is Addicting Us To Our Phones. He’s Determined To Make It Stop” (Atlantic Monthly, November 2016), Harris, a former product philosopher at Google, states, “In short, we have lost our control of our relationship with technology because technology has become better at controlling us”.

Limiting the degree of time our children spend on their technology has nothing to do with putting a damper on their fun or curbing their social life. It has everything to do with protecting their brains from early addictive conditioning.

2. Role of White Matter in the Brain and Its Relationship to Neural Pruning

Parents/guardians, please don’t allow the words “white matter” and “neural pruning” to discourage you. I will keep this simple. I’m not a scientist either! This section is really important.

We have gray matter in our brains. But, we also have white matter, myelin, which functions as our neural network. According to Dr. Kardaras, myelin is important because, “Myelination occurs as part of a healthy developmental process. As we grow and learn, our myelination increases in areas of the brain that need it” (2015). Just as with our

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.