The Life of Z by Sengupta Debashish;

Author:Sengupta, Debashish; [Sengupta, Debashish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAGE Publications India Pvt, Ltd.
Published: 2019-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Impact on Cognitive Development

Researchers in the USA, Canada and France have found a clear link among excess ‘screen time’, early exposure to mobile and gadgets and poor cognitive skills among kids. The strong link between time spent staring at the screen and brain function potentially reflects the interruption of the stress recovery cycle needed for growth in children. Each minute of time spent on screen takes away a minute from sleep. Too little sleep and excess screen time are clearly linked to a drop off in cognitive skills, such as language ability, memory and task completion, besides raising concern about rise in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder among kids.

The problem of excess screen time because of overuse of mobile, digital technology and TV is universal. A study by Jeremy Walsh, a researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, found that only 1 in 20 kids in the USA meets guidelines on sleep, exercise and screen time. On an average, children aged eight–eleven years spend 3.6 hours per day glued to a TV, mobile phone, tablet or computer screen, against the recommended 2 hours. That’s almost double the recommended limit.

ABCD is a landmark study on brain development and child health supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. This project has recruited nearly 10,000 kids to follow them into early adulthood and understand the impact of environmental, social, genetic and other biological factors on brain and cognitive development and that can enhance or disrupt a young person’s life trajectory. In brain scans of 4,500 children, daily screen usage of more than seven hours showed premature thinning of the brain cortex, the outermost layer, which processes information from the physical world. The difference is significant from children who spend less time on screen. According to lead researcher Dr Gaya Dowling, it may be too soon to draw linkages between thinning of brain cortex and cognitive development of kids; however, early results from the ABCD study show that children who spent more than two hours of daily screen time scored lower on thinking and language tests.

Paediatricians from France and the USA urge parents not to allow children any screen time until the age of eighteen months. Canada is the first country to propose time limits on backlit screen.

Dr Girish H. C. and Dr Anil M. U., both prominent consultant paediatricians in Bengaluru, feel that the overexposure to mobile/gadgets and consequently to the digital world has somewhere diminished personal connect and replaced the same by a digital connect. The kids and adolescents of this generation are more connected to the virtual world than to the real world. The influence that this virtual world is having on them is disturbing and even at times dangerous. Too much use of mobile/gadgets from a very young age creates its own sets of problems.

Speech Delay

Speech delay is becoming a big issue among young kids with the advent of the mobile and digital world. It is not uncommon to find a two-year-old getting worried about the presence of Wi-Fi wherever they go, even to a hospital.

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