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Study Links Restricting Screen Time For Kids To Higher Mental Performance (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Parents who possess the resolve to separate their children from their smartphones may be helping their kids' brainpower, a new study suggests. A report adds: Children who use smartphones and other devices in their free time for fewer than two hours a day performed better on cognitive tests assessing their thinking, language, and memory, according to a study published this week in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. The study assessed the behavior of 4,500 children, ages 8 to 11, by looking at their sleep schedules, how much time they spent on screens and their amount of exercise, and analyzed how those factors impacted the children's mental abilities. The researchers compared the results with national guidelines for children's health. The guidelines recommend that children in that age group, get at least an hour of physical activity, no more than two hours of recreational screen time and nine to 11 hours of sleep per night. The researchers found that only 5 percent of children met all three recommendations. Sixty-three percent of children spent more than two hours a day staring at screens, failing to meet the screen-time limit.

30 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Duh by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

    Steve Jobs (even though he was an asshole) was a wise man and he wouldn't let his kids touch iPhones or iPads... he didn't want them to become stupid.

    1. Re:Duh by Guybrush_T · · Score: 1

      There we go. One study finds a correlation between lower mental performance and watching phones or TV all day and people conclude that kids should never see a screen before they're 18.

      That is as stupid as "Kids who only drink water lack essential nutrients, therefore I'll never give water to my kids.".

      Obviously, kids whose parents use phones or TVs as a babysitter are much likely to have lower mental performance than those who interact with their parents.

      Which doesn't mean phones, TV, and other stuff should not be part of a healthy, balanced diet.

      Playing outside is good for health. Playing video games is good for mental abilities. Watching TV is likely good for other things.

      I'm tired of those troll studies.

    2. Re:Duh by piers_downunder · · Score: 1

      He may have been wise on this one issue, but there are certainly better people you could get parenting advice from. His first daughter devoted much of her book on how bad a father he was.

  2. Let kids go outside by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think part of this gravitation towards more screen time is an unwarranted fear by parents that something awful will happen to little Johnny if he's allowed to go outside. Gangs, pedophiles, drug dealers, Jehovah's witnesses, or other unsavory individuals will sure get poor little Johnny and cause him irreparable harm.

    The wold has only become a safer place since we grew up. Somehow all of us (and the generations before us) managed to survive playing outside for most of the day. Maybe a few of us ran into what might be considered a dicey situation for a child of that age, but part of growing up is learning to navigate those situations. Expecting anyone to turn 18 and magically become an adult is foolhardy. All we've done is created developmentally delayed individuals who are only starting to grow into adults when they go to college and get the hell away from their overprotective parents.

    If you trap kids inside all day, it shouldn't be any surprise that they turn to screens to give them something to do. Allow kids the opportunity to play outside and I suspect that many of them will naturally use screens a lot less frequently.

    1. Re:Let kids go outside by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      he wold has only become a safer place since we grew up. Somehow all of us (and the generations before us) managed to survive playing outside for most of the day. Maybe a few of us ran into what might be considered a dicey situation for a child of that age, but part of growing up is learning to navigate those situations. Expecting anyone to turn 18 and magically become an adult is foolhardy. All we've done is created developmentally delayed individuals who are only starting to grow into adults when they go to college and get the hell away from their overprotective parents.

      If you trap kids inside all day, it shouldn't be any surprise that they turn to screens to give them something to do. Allow kids the opportunity to play outside and I suspect that many of them will naturally use screens a lot less frequently.

      I wish I had mod points for you...so much THIS!!

      Sadly, I've heard that in some parts of the US, they have actually charged parents with crimes for letting little Johnny/Susie run about the neighborhood and play unsupervised, like I and all my peers did as children.

      Geez, I guess if I were raised by my parents today like I was a few decades back, my parents would be in jail, I'd be in child protective services, and they'd drug me, because I was always running around and "acting like a boy" as they termed it back in my days of childhood.

      I actually feel a bit sorry for kids today....and thank God I grew up in an era where there wasn't a fucking camera everywhere to get you into trouble when getting into mischief....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:Let kids go outside by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      ..the well-known slashdot INCEL

      Ok, I hate to feed a troll, but I've seen this a couple times....WTF is an "incel"? I'm guessing some sort of insult, but I've never heard of the term before....something you made up?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    3. Re:Let kids go outside by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

      All we've done is created developmentally delayed individuals who are only starting to grow into adults when they go to college and get the hell away from their overprotective parents.

      If you trap kids inside all day, it shouldn't be any surprise that they turn to screens to give them something to do. Allow kids the opportunity to play outside and I suspect that many of them will naturally use screens a lot less frequently.

      I doubt it's entirely the parents' fault. I imagine parents are keeping their kids indoors in order to keep them away from Child Overprotective Services.

    4. Re:Let kids go outside by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      I didn't say it was the only cause, merely that I think it's a part of the overall problem. I think it's one that's particularly easy to fix as well.

    5. Re:Let kids go outside by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      I think it's relatively new, or at least I hadn't heard about it until this year or so. It's a portmanteau of "involuntary" and "celibacy" and is a group of men that have created their own little part of the internet where they complain about how life is unfair because they can't get laid and how it's the fault of the women who don't find them attractive. It's almost like the male equivalent of radical feminists that want to blame everything on men.

      I'm assuming that the implication in labeling someone an incel is that they're a sad, pathetic, little man that can't get laid because no one wants them.

    6. Re:Let kids go outside by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      think it's relatively new, or at least I hadn't heard about it until this year or so. It's a portmanteau of "involuntary" and "celibacy" and is a group of men that have created their own little part of the internet where they complain about how life is unfair because they can't get laid and how it's the fault of the women who don't find them attractive. It's almost like the male equivalent of radical feminists that want to blame everything on men.

      Interesting.....I've never heard about this before.

      What's so hard about getting laid? Geez....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    7. Re:Let kids go outside by lgw · · Score: 1

      And, really, Slashdot is the last place to use "incel" as a non-ironic insult. If you're not posting from your mother's basement while watching anime*, you're letting down the side.

      *Xena tapes are also acceptable.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re:Let kids go outside by lgw · · Score: 1

      Also worth linking: free-range parenting is the movement to push back on all this.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:Let kids go outside by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Interesting.....I've never heard about this before.

      Read about the Toronto van attack and the UCSB incel murders. In both cases, incels murdered multiple women ... because women in general weren't having sex with them.

      Incelism is likely biggest in Japan, where millions of men are not having sex, or even relationships, and their race is asymptotically dwindling away.

      what's so hard about getting laid? Geez....

      It is not so hard if you are willing to lower your standards. But incels want to have sex with supermodels.

    10. Re:Let kids go outside by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      It is not so hard if you are willing to lower your standards. But incels want to have sex with supermodels.

      Unless you as a man, are truly hideous....mutated, if you keep in decent shape, and practice basic hygiene....you can easily approach women, GOOD looking women and get laid.

      It takes a bit of confidence, and it is a numbers game, just remember rejection won't kill you....just keep working on it and after awhile, you notice it just isn't that hard to engage women, and get in their pants after awhile.

      Who knows, along the way, you might find one you want to stick with....but that's not a necessity.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    11. Re:Let kids go outside by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      if you keep in decent shape, and practice basic hygiene ...

      So ... victim blaming?

      ...you can easily approach women, GOOD looking women and get laid.

      You need to understand Stacy, Becky, and Chad. I find Becky more appealing, but the incels want Stacy. Unfortunately, Chad is a
      cockblocker.

    12. Re:Let kids go outside by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      So ... victim blaming?

      LOL...nah...but c'mon, you gotta meet them at least half way, eh?

      No one wants to be intimate with someone that hasn't bathed in a week, smells bad, has soiled clothing on, etc....I'm talking basic, common sense hygiene at least!!!

      Would you want to sleep with a chick that was that nasty?

      At least have the same standards of cleanliness, etc....as those you are looking to as potential mates to have sex with or more.

      Just have at least a little common sense here, eh?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  3. I think it would depend more on WHAT they do by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's less the amount of time spent with computers and other electronic devices, it's more how they are used. I can of course only offer my own experience, but I had my first computer when I was 10. I learned programming, and I did learn building periphery for it, simply because that was a necessity back then. Before I was 20, I was already pretty good at both of those things, developing hardware and programs to disable certain routines in software that aren't too useful for the user and sometimes even detrimental to his plans concerning the application of the hard- or software he wanted to use.

    Both of these things kinda let me reach the position I'm in now. Back then there was no college courses for IT security and certainly none for malware analysis. But the skills you develop when redesigning code other people wrote to facilitate the use of aforementioned code translates pretty well into those fields.

    Of course if all you do with your screen time is to tap the screen to rack up some points in a clicker game, the net benefit of such an activity is quite negligible. And it also isn't quite stimulating for your higher brain functions to watch some clips or exchange emojis instead of actually talking to people.

    The problem isn't so much that our kids use electronic devices, the problem is in what they do with them. And an even bigger problem is that them being mindless, consuming drones without any incentive to actually create something themselves is pretty much what pretty much every corporation out there wants them to be. You're fighting an uphill battle there.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:I think it would depend more on WHAT they do by Comrade+Ogilvy · · Score: 1

      It is certainly possible to get huge positive benefits from "screens". But it is not realistic to expect such to happen, especially for young children. Even educational software is very gamified and of dubious positive value. It is only when you get to more real courses that computers offer significant educational value, which is for older children, and even those just do not work for everyone.

      Furthermore, the screen world is full of entertainment, infortainment, and edutainment. I would say getting used to being entertained is a significant negative lesson.

      To put it another way, Mister Rogers was right and Sesame Street was wrong. Sesame Street tried to use the modern media techniques to deliver educational content, and I think it was mostly (but not completely) a failure. Mister Rogers tried to keep it very very simple and slow and real, treat the viewers as human beings rather than eyeballs that needed to be grabbed by dazzling cinematic craft, and trust that simply showing interesting things is even better when not trying hard to entertain.

      Of course, better than Mister Rogers is getting outside and digging in the dirt.

  4. Darn shame about that by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    whole CBT thing, and the hours of required homework including word processing.

    I do tend to agree with physical activities being important, and if a kid is tired enough, they'll sleep.

    Starting times for students (pickup at 6:00am) also seem to screw with sleep cycles. Include after school activities (sports, music...) and a 10-12 hour school day becomes the norm.

  5. Paywalled? by rot26 · · Score: 1

    Is there any way around the paywall?

    Let's not link to articles behind paywalls. Ok?

    --



    To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
  6. My anecdote says other wise by jader3rd · · Score: 1

    We all know we parents are losing the war against screens. The best we can do is make sure that the kids consume semi-educational things on their screens. Now that my kids are in elementary school the teachers make comments about the whole class being more and more advanced by the time they start. I attribute that to the screen time the kids get.

    1. Re:My anecdote says other wise by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      We all know we parents are losing the war against screens. The best we can do is make sure that the kids consume semi-educational things on their screens.

      Or, you could you know...assert your authority of being a parent and NOT giving the kids everything they want, including "screens"....or at the very least, be very judicious about when you ALLOW them to use them, and then, take them away.

      And your elementary kid does not need a fucking smart phone.

      You as a parent has the authority, control and responsibility to make these decisions for your kids....

      If you don't have the control over them, then you have more problems you need to catch up and fix than screen time.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:My anecdote says other wise by jader3rd · · Score: 1

      Why? They seem to be more prepared for entering school than previous generations.

  7. Balance is Key by scubamage · · Score: 1

    I honestly think that balance is key. No, your kid shouldn't be in front of a screen all day every day, and TV and games are never a substitute for parental attention. Kids need socialization, kinesthetic learning, etc. However, the AAP says my 15mo daughter shouldn't get any screen time except for video calls until she's 18mo. I think that's a bit too far. We DO spend a few minutes a day with some learning apps, usually 10min or less. Because of it, she's starting to associate letters with the sounds they make, and she's starting to differentiate different numbers and letters. For her age, that is absolutely awesome. We use endless academy, khan academy kids, and as stupid as it sounds, purina makes a "cat fishing" game for cats which is super simple but seems to be helping our daughter build hand-eye coordination. There are probably a ton more simple things that would be helpful. So, I believe some amount of purposeful screen time used well can definitely benefit even very young children. But it should never be the "only" thing.

    1. Re:Balance is Key by fropenn · · Score: 1

      You can do plenty of learning activities for young kids that do not require screens.

    2. Re:Balance is Key by scubamage · · Score: 2

      And we do. That doesn't mean we can't also do activities that do require screens. It isn't a zero-sum game.

  8. What about for adults? by BarneyGuarder · · Score: 1

    I get way more screen time than I used to and, uhh..., now I, umm...

    Oooh! Look at that cat video!

  9. bullshit study by jsepeta · · Score: 1

    study was conducted by coordinating parents who want their kids to do well in school and don't want them on the computer or cellphone. that's a self-selective group. this study is bunk.

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    Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
  10. Correlation vs Causation by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 1

    I think it more likely that the children who listen to their parents about limiting screen time and other harmful activities are the brighter, more creative children. You can only tell a dip-shit so many times to stop wasting their time on garbage and apply themselves to something useful. You can lead a horse to water, but, you can't make them drink.

  11. Re:Make the kids go outside and Supervise them by mmphs · · Score: 1

    Well, it really depends on where you live. I am in a central European country, a city of 200k population, and it is MUCH safer than, say, 20 years ago. Of course you can always get into trouble, but in general, it is getting better and better. Somehow, I did not feel even remotely as comfortable when I was traveling the US this year. Especially in larger cities.