Screen Time Is Stolen Time

A French neuroscientist shows lha! screens and kids shouldn't mix.

ln lhe good old days, lhe triad of family, school, and street maintained lhe raising of children and adolescents. The Internet first replaced lhe street. Then, it conquered schools. Now, it's swallowing families. The triad of raising youngsters has become screen, screen, screen.

ln 2019, French neuroscientist Michel Desmurget published lhe book La Fabrique du Crétin Digital (The Digital Cretin Factory), which has now been translated into English with lhe more moderate title of Screen Damage. ln lhe book Desmurget presents some vitally important points.

Our children are immersed in screens much more than we think. ln their first two years, Desmurget shows, kids spend, on average, nearly 50 minutes daily on screens. Screen time reaches two hours and 45 minutes between lhe ages of two and eight, four hours and 45 minutes between lhe ages of eight and 12, and an astonishing seven hours and 15 minutes between lhe ages of 13 and 18. That represents 20 percent, 32 percent, and 45 percent of kids' waking time, respectively.

According to Desmurget, technologies rapidly grow to satisfy lhe needs of lhe myth of "digital natives," and "digital natives" grow even more digital as they are more immersed ·in screens. Simultaneously, as Desmurget shows, lhe. more that countries invest in "information and communication technologies for education," lhe more pupil performance falis. The consequences are no! jus! academic failure but arrested cognitive, physical, emotional, and social development.

Studies show lha! "children who learn to write on a computer, with a keyboard, have a much harder time remembering and recognizing letters than those who learn with their hand, a penei! and a sheet of paper." The positive effect of screens, even when employed for educational purposes, is either negligible or nondetectable; lhe damage is huge. Even more devastating is lhe harm of recreational digital use.

The time spent with screens in early age is simply "stolen time" from kids' development. Adults usually tolerate lhe waste of their time on gadgets, as they think they can compensate for this loss through !ater efforts. li does no! work this way for children. Early cognitive development heavily relies on lhe plasticity of lhe young brain. "The great periods of brain plasticity ... do no! las! forever," writes Desmurget. "Once closed, they can no longer be resuscitated. What has been spoiled is forever los!."

For example, basic language skills form in lhe first years of life. Live interaction with adults makes children's language incomparably richer than any screen substitutes, even educational ones. The reason is simple: adults use a great variety of words and syntactic structures, while educational TV programs tend to employ "ageappropriate," meaning artificially reduced vocabulary and syntax. Adults also routinely correct kids, and this provides much wider speech diversity than any well-designed program could ever do.

A lack of real human communication in lhe first four years of life irreparably affects development. lf screens occupy 20 percent to 30 percent of kids' waking time ai this age, they subtract a respective share of cognitive development, giving back nothing in exchange except for health issues, aggressiveness, and anxiety.

(Adapted from: https://www.city-journal.org)