Increased screen learning in schools and during the COVID-19 pandemic have added to the mix of video games, smartphones, laptops, and tablets that have especially captured today’ s students.
Is all that screen-watching just a harmless waste of time? No. According to scientific studies, it’ s producing actual negative changes in young peoples’ brain development. Research published in the International Journal of Sociology of the Family in 2021, for example, states that excessive screen time is linked to“ atrophy in the frontal, striatal, and insula cortex regions of the brain” and specifically reduction in the thickness of the orbitofrontal cortex. Ouch.
“ Thinning of the orbitofrontal cortex has also been shown to significantly impact memory and can increase the incidence of obsessive-compulsive disorder,” the paper reads.
Excessive screen use is also linked to a decline in“ crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence,” as well as a decline in executive functions, the paper’ s author wrote— the ability to plan, remember instructions, pay attention, multi-task, shift between tasks and complete them. Other affected functions included the ability to delay gratification, control impulses, process sensory input, regulate social behavior and even selfawareness. Executive functions don’ t fully develop until the mid-to-late 20s say experts.
A study in The Journal of Pediatrics found that just one hour of screen time per day was linked to diminished executive functions in children as young as 2 years old. Research published in Preventive Medicine Reports found that just one hour per day of screen time in children and adolescents between the ages of 2 and 17 was linked to less curiosity, less self-control, and greater distractibility. Sadly, teens are now averaging more than nine hours per day of screen time while those aged 8 to 12 are averaging eight hours, according to research by Common Sense Media.
Research in the journal Environmental Research echoes that brain structural changes and cognitive and emotional regulation are associated with excess screen time. It even offers a case study in which screen time may have added to the ADHD diagnosis of a 9-year-old boy.
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