Babies and young children
Find out here about the price our babies and young children may be paying for their entertainment and our convenience.
Young children and social media
According to this 2019 Barnado’s report, Left To Their Own Devices, “Practitioners raised concerns in relation to the social and emotional development of very young children when they interact with social media. Worries regarding addiction and the substitution of time spent with family for the use of social media were issues that were also felt to cause problems related to mental health and emotional wellbeing in this age group.
Key apprehensions included the failure to develop the skills to think creatively, interact with others socially and manage their own emotions.”
Read the report, or this 2019 Times article, Why Social Media Could Be Putting Your Toddler At Risk, which summarises the key concerns reported in the Barnado’s study.
Does screentime increase the likelihood of developing ADHD?
It seems the jury’s out, but this study, Screen-time is associated with inattention problems in preschoolers, concludes:
“Screen-time above the two-hours threshold at 5-years was associated with an increased risk of clinically relevant externalizing morbidity* and specifically inattention problems. The association between screen-time and behavioral morbidity was greater than any other risk factor including sleep, parenting stress, and socio-economic factors.”
*Morbidity here means any mental or physical illness
Read this 2022 article in The Times, in which head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh says,
“I’d love to see billboards that are anti giving phones to toddlers… I’d love to see adverts online so that it just becomes normal. Because how are you meant to know that you should talk to your toddler all the time? How are you meant to know that you’re meant to read to them? The reason you know,” she says, “is that everyone around you does it. And that’s the importance of culture.”
Screen Use Tied to Children’s Brain Development
“A new study using sophisticated brain scans found an association between screen use and the development of young children’s brains, especially in areas related to language development, reinforcing the messages about minimizing screen time for preschoolers.
The researchers compared screen use per child to the 'degree of myelination of the neurons, the coating of the connections between nerve cells with a fatty substance — myelin — which is what makes white matter white. It insulates the nerve cells and increases the efficiency of signaling.
The message is not meant to be that some children are disadvantaged for life, but rather that in the early years of life, there’s additional evidence to suggest that nothing should squeeze out interactions, relationships and engagement — and to worry that the seductive power of screens may do just that.”
“…parents…constantly on their smartphones, not looking at their kids…”
“I was at a lecture with clinicians, discussing visual changes, and a pre-school teacher there observed that, increasingly, kids weren't looking at other people when speaking with them. Another teacher there reported the same loss of eye contact. At first it seemed to them like these kids might have Asperger's, which is on the rise, and involves a discomfort with eye contact. But as the teachers watched the parents picking those kids up, they saw they were constantly on their smartphones, not looking at their kids – or the teachers, either, for that matter.”
TikTok being used by 16% of British toddlers, Ofcom finds
The Guardian’s article informs that “Three-year-olds are on the video-sharing platform and it may be affecting their attention span.”
Stunting our children’s development?
Mary Aiken in The Cyber Effect cites Cris Rowan, a paediatric occupational therapist, child development expert and founder of an organisation called Moving to Learn.
“According to Rowan, as many as one in three children now enter school developmentally delayed, negatively impacting literacy and academic achievement.”
Later Aiken states, “In Britain, an escalation of problems associated with pervasive tablet use among preschool children has been reported by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, including developmental delays in attention span, fine motor schools and dexterity, speaking, and socialisation – as well as an increase in aggressive and antisocial behaviour, obesity and tiredness.”
Read chapter three of Aiken’s book to find out about the rise in rates of of ADHD, the inaccuracy of the word ‘interactive,’ how ‘educational apps’ actually distract children from learning and what children are saying about their parents’ distractedness.
Early overuse of screen technology can cause permanent damage in toddlers
Interesting reading on the Moving To Learn site on the importance of movement, touch, connection and nature to the proper development of babies and young children.
Look at the table towards the bottom of the page, titled Technology Use Guidelines for Children and Youth. It recommends no tech for ages 0-2. It’s worth looking at to see what the experts recommend for older kids too. These guidelines were developed by Cris Rowan pediatric occupational therapist, Dr. Andrew Doan neuroscientist, Dr. Hilarie Cash, Director of reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Program, with contributions from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Pediatric Society.
Babies and young children dying of neglect because their parents were addicted to gaming
There are growing cases of babies and young children dying of neglect because their parents were addicted to gaming.
This article in the New York Post, ‘Our digital addictions are killing our kids’ tells a chilling story of babies and toddlers dying due to their parents’ video game addictions.
Yes these are extremes, nonetheless, the article describes how, “many of us are guilty, to some degree, of what’s become known as ‘distracted parent syndrome’ — parents who are so distracted by their electronics that they fail to give their children the attention that they so critically need: the father at the airport whose 3-year-old is pulling at his pant leg while he stares into his glowing palm; the mother pushing her stroller across the street with one hand while texting with the other; the couple binge-watching Netflix while their baby cries in the crib. The fact is that when we’re electronically distracted, we’re robbing our children of our undivided attention and the meaningful eye-to-eye contact that they so desperately need to be emotionally and psychologically healthy and well-adjusted.”