Tablets and smartphones seem to play a big role these days in the lives of toddlers, mainly as distractions while mom or dad get chores done. Still, the more time toddlers spend staring onto a screen, the less time they spend learning through experiences in the real world.
Plus, their ability to learn, communicate, and even build on their vocabulary are greatly affected. Read on…
The next time you’re out at a restaurant with your family, take a look around. Screen time seems to be an inescapable reality of modern childhood, with kids of various ages dedicating hours of their full attention towards their tablet, smartphone, and even television. While it’s not a bad thing, it can easily take a turn for the worse if you let it.
Educational apps are all the rage now, where else educational TV shows have been around for quite some time now. They are great ways for children to sharpen their developing brains and hone their imagination and all — not to mention the break these screen times provide harried parents. Still, when parents themselves rely on it too much, sooner or later, the effects will show.
Studies have already revealed the links between cognitive development in kids with extended exposure to electronic media. Children these days, from infancy even, spend hours a day in front of some form of electronic media. Today, it’s not uncommon to see two-year-olds playing games on the touch screen of a parent’s tablet or phone. We can’t help but go: “What a smart child.” In the long run though, it may not be the smartest thing to do.
Long-term consequences – now’s the time to think about it
Toddlers tend to form habits fast, and so they will get hooked to screen time if parents let it be. This will not be an issue if it doesn’t cause permanent damage to their still-developing brains. Too much screen time too soon is the very thing impeding the development of the abilities that parents are so eager to foster through the tablets. The ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention to what others are saying and doing, and to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary — all those abilities are harmed. That’s a bitter pill to swallow but it’s the truth.
Parents may mean well, and it’s easy to conclude that getting their kids to be tech-savvy at a tender age may provide them with an educational edge, but without realising it, all that screen time can be doing more harm than they ever imagined—and they need to start planning out future screen time with more wariness.
Between birth and age three, for example, a child’s brain develops quickly and is particularly sensitive to the surrounding environment. It is called the critical period of child development because the changes that happen in the brain during these first tender years become the permanent foundation upon which all later brain function is built. In order for the brain’s neural networks to develop normally during the critical period, a child needs specific stimuli from the outside environment. While the world evolves and changes around us, this rule in child development has not and will not change. The problem is that essential stimuli are being pushed aside in favour of screen time. Little ones at very tender ages are spending way too much time in front of a screen and not getting enough required stimuli from the real world. Consequently, on very large scales, their developments are being affected. and not just for a while – if the damage happens during these crucial early years, those results can affect them for the long term.
But there are loads of stimuli in there!
True, the tablet and/or smartphone offers a whole lot in terms of stimuli, but the ability to process multiple actions simultaneously—is exactly what young brains do not need during their critical developing years. They need to be emotionally nourished, communicating with family members, connecting with them, making friends, etc.
For example, a smartphone-told story can never take the place of a mother reading a story to a child. The smartphone way is akin to force-feeding images, words, and pictures all at once to a young brain. So, rather than having to take the time to process a mother’s voice into words, visualize complete pictures and exert a mental effort to follow a storyline, a toddler who follows stories on a smartphone might get incompetent in terms of cognitive growth, for the device is doing all the thinking.
How the modern world is creating little introverts
There is an area of the brain, called the frontal lobe, that is responsible for decoding and comprehending social interactions. Why is this important? Because it is the part of the brain we use when we learn how to empathize with others, take in nonverbal cues while talking to friends and colleagues, and learn how to read the hundreds of unspoken signs—facial expression, tone of voice, and more — all the elements that add color and depth to real-world relationships. This learning and developments take place during the critical growing years.
The issue today is, while this crucial development is dependent on authentic human interactions, a growing number of toddlers and children are spending lots of precious time in front of tablets instead of communicating and playing with family members and other children.
Hence, their empathic abilities—the near-instinctive way most of us read situations and get a feel for other people— is slowly being dulled off.
This is, after all, real life
Often, we break out in a burst of laughter when we see babies trying frantically to “swipe” a page of a magazine, or punch their adorable little fingers onto a poster or book as if it were a touchscreen. It’s cute to look at, but it points to something much deeper in the child’s brain— which is a wrong understanding that all actions have an immediate effect, and all stimuli elicit a quick response.
This is true only in the on-screen world, but nowhere else! And this is where confusion and misconceptions begin – in the tender developing years. When every finger swipe brings about a response of colors and shapes and sounds, a child’s brain responds gleefully with the neurotransmitter dopamine, the key component in our reward system that is associated with feelings of pleasure. Dopamine hits in the brain can feel almost addictive, and when a child gets too used to an immediate stimuli response, he will learn to always prefer smartphone-style interaction—that is, immediate gratification and response—over real-world connections with people, pets, toys, etc.
This pattern and its consequences, mimics, in a less intense manner, the disturbing cycle teachers, psychologists, and physicians often witness in young children with behavioral issues.
A time for everything
Now that we’ve helped you understand how overexposure to smartphones can pose a danger for your young child’s developing brain, it’s up to you to make an effort to control the situation. We’re not denying that there are a lot of benefits to letting little ones use technology. Once a child is over the age of two, feel free to allow limited screen time. We recommend a maximum of an hour of playing with the tablet or smartphone each day—to help develop coordination, hone quick reactions, and even sharpen language skills. As long as you treat it just the same as with allowing them access to other toys and tools – it should stay in moderation, and never stand-in for human interaction.
There have to be clear boundaries between the online world and reality. Powering off when you need to is the best way to help your child differentiate between the two.
