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Screen Time Changes Structure of Kids' Brains, NIH Study Shows (bloombergquint.com)
schwit1 shared this article from Bloomberg:
Brain scans of adolescents who are heavy users of smartphones, tablets and video games look different from those of less active screen users, preliminary results from an ongoing study funded by the National Institutes of Health show, according to a report on Sunday by "60 Minutes." That's the finding of the first batch of scans of 4,500 nine- to 10-year-olds. Scientists will follow those children and thousands more for a decade to see how childhood experiences, including the use of digital devices, affect their brains, emotional development and mental health.
In the first round of testing, the scans of children who reported daily screen usage of more than seven hours showed premature thinning of the brain cortex, the outermost layer that processes information from the physical world.... Early results from the $300 million study, called Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD), have determined that children who spend more than two hours of daily screen time score lower on thinking and language tests. A major data release is scheduled for early 2019.
The study's director cautions that "It won't be until we follow them over time that we will see if there are outcomes that are associated with the differences that we're seeing in this single snapshot."
The study will ultimately follow over 11,000 nine- to 10-year-olds for a decade.
In the first round of testing, the scans of children who reported daily screen usage of more than seven hours showed premature thinning of the brain cortex, the outermost layer that processes information from the physical world.... Early results from the $300 million study, called Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD), have determined that children who spend more than two hours of daily screen time score lower on thinking and language tests. A major data release is scheduled for early 2019.
The study's director cautions that "It won't be until we follow them over time that we will see if there are outcomes that are associated with the differences that we're seeing in this single snapshot."
The study will ultimately follow over 11,000 nine- to 10-year-olds for a decade.
The entire dataset (~50TB) is open to search and download right now. There will be bi-yearly releases of both MR and psychological testing, a great starter set for those willing to have their hand at Big Data analysis.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
How do they know the changes are detrimental?
"children who spend more than two hours of daily screen time score lower on thinking and language tests."
It was right there ... you didn't even need to read the article.
Yours is a reasonable conjecture, and I'd tend to agree on intuition alone. Is there proof to back it up?
What if staring at a glowing screen is the key and it doesn't matter what you stare at all day? Perhaps one day the data will support switching kids to e-paper only devices.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
These studies usually require a control group that represents those who do not have the distinguishing features of those being studied. In this case, young people who aren't exposed to screen time. Where will these people be found? In the Amazon jungles? And how can they objectively used as a control group? If there is a significant difference in the economic / geographical / ethnic / etc status of the control group, the study can't be valid.
...omphaloskepsis often...
children who spend more than two hours of daily screen time score lower on thinking and language tests
That doesn't say much to me. Were the tests on paper? What if tests on been done on devices instead?
I strongly distrust the results of a singular set of tests at one point in time to determine the overall abilities of a person.
Consider this, also from the summary:
"showed premature thinning of the brain cortex"
That means it is supposed to happen later, but is happening earlier.. but is that really bad? Perhaps that means they are more advanced in some ways.
The thing is our ability still to determine how kids learning what state the brain is in is still primitive enough that I question the degree to which they are able to truly determine what is truly bad or not for them long term...
I do not see how access to a transformative learning device can be bad in the end, except from the standpoint of removing kids from some physical activity. As long as they get some movement and physical exercise, I say let them have as much screen time as they want.
In 20 years, mark my words, scientists will be reversed on this just as they are on everything else they tell people and kids to stay away from.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Personally, I blame Slashdot.
Have gnu, will travel.
Isn't the nature of the screen time tantamount?
That word doesn't mean what you appear to think it means. Too much screen time as a kid?
I think they are learning how better to handle a larger flow of information.
Oh, as long as you think there's an upside to it, I guess we'll ignore the science.
Do you also have some things you think about vaccines, climate change, or evolution we should heed instead of listening to, um, actual scientists?
"In the first round of testing, the scans of children who reported daily screen usage of more than seven hours showed premature thinning of the brain cortex, the outermost layer that processes information from the physical world."
That is a ton of screen time, especially for kids that should be in school most of the day.
How do they know the changes are detrimental?
From the study director:
They're not claiming to know one way or the other.
Everything "changes the structure of our brains", or learning would not work.
True, but learning doesn't generally create structural changes so large that they're physically observable in an MRI. A little conservatism is warranted here.
I think they are learning how better to handle a larger flow of information.
Could be. Or it could be that they're learning to accept information by filtering and processing it less, in fact that would be a more obvious interpretation of a thinned cortex. But the real bottom line is that it's such a large difference that it results in gross structural changes, and we don't know what the effect is. That's worrisome.
We're seeing a growing "digital divide" between poor kids whose parents are too busy to supervise them all the time and choose to let screens raise them and rich kids whose parents increasingly keep them away from screens as much as possible. I can tell you that I'm pushing for my grandkids to be the latter group. Maybe this is a bad choice, maybe these rich kids will grow up disadvantaged compared to their screen-drenched peers. We don't know. But based mostly on how addictive screens are to kids, and on the outcomes of most addictive behaviors, I'm betting on lots of screen time being bad for development, until proved otherwise.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You are totally right, that is a whole other variable - they are talking about a generic learning tool that could literally be showing them anything, so how well and what they learn is up to what is done with the device...
It's like, are they doing math or watching Spongebob 24x7?
Controlling screen time is way less important than controlling/monitoring content OF the screen. It is a tool, and like any tool could be used for good or ill...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He didn't even read the first paragraph
I did, I just choose not to blindly believe everything someone tells me without careful consideration.
Look at the other posts (including my own followup) that points out many possible flaws in just considering "screen time" without thinking about other factors.
We will not really know the effects until ten years from now, assuming they are still running the study (which it sounds like they plan to).
Blinky trusting authority is no way to prosper friend.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Where are all of the people that complained about kids reading comic books instead of the 'classics' years ago?
Al least your kid was reading.
Yes, I really despise this type of people. Probably because I read comic books.
I'm going to buy your kid a toy gun, a drum, and some pick-up sticks for christmas. Maybe some glitter too.
Yours is a reasonable conjecture, and I'd tend to agree on intuition alone. Is there proof to back it up?
That's why there's this study.
Isn't the nature of the screen time tantamount? If the kid spends his screen time reading books, watching lectures, and discussing thought provoking content, isn't that obviously going to have a very different effect compared to scrolling through instagram all day?
Ultimately, from the social point of view, I'm not sure this matters. Yes, the question needs to be answered for the science to be complete. But let's not pretend that if we find out the content IS the culprit, we'll be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Kids will probably keep on spending large amounts of time consuming games, TV, movies, and social media on their devices, regardless of the cognitive effects. It will be very difficult to reverse this trend - people are addicted to their devices, and advertisers definitely don't want the population-at-large spending less time drinking the corporate Kool-Aid.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Do you think LEDs poison the brain in yet unknown ways and reflective displays don't?
Nothing too special about LED light. it's bright and of a narrow spectrum. CRT phosphor also had few emission lines. But I'm not at all suggesting there are optical effects here.
On the other hand. A strobing panel, no matter the light source, maybe that has a neurological implications. I'd look more at the duration of exposure and the frequency of the strobing than anything. Sadly if we discover there is some addictive properties to a light that flashes at a certain interval people will use that information to get more YouTube clicks.
Most likely it has nothing to do with the lighted panel, and we're just playing with kids dopamine response by exposing them to garbage stimulus like mobile apps and youtube. I remember television being a concerns for my generation, the problems were overblown. We didn't become mindless zombies. Maybe more prone to depression though.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I didn't see anything in the study that lead to this conclusion. It's fine to discuss ideas, but it's not a closed case.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Mod parent comment UP! Good thinking. "Brain science" is, at present, often not science.
Correct:
"The thing is our ability still to determine how kids learning what state the brain is in is still primitive enough that I question the degree to which they are able to truly determine what is truly bad or not for them long term..."
When it first appeared, many people were against rock and roll.
I dunno. We've had books for a LONG time that read the same as e-ink. We just don't have a large body of work on people who spend all day reading.
You assume that there is such a thing as "authority" therefore you are a lost cause from the get go.
Blindly trusting self-proclaimed authority is a problem, and I have yet to encounter any species of authority other than the self-proclaimed variant. Of course, you may grant someone else authority over yourself, though why you would do that is beyond my ken. Nonetheless, such proclamation of authority applies only to the proclaimer and not to anyone else.
True, but learning doesn't generally create structural changes so large that they're physically observable in an MRI. A little conservatism is warranted here.
On the contrary that's exactly what learning does, and we've known that it does this for at least the last seven years.
Cool link, thanks. However, the fact that we've observed one other case hardly makes this common. If differences in education commonly created gross structural changes in the brain, this study wouldn't be news.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Is there an appreciable difference between backlight flicker when reading an electronic book and fluorescent lamp flicker when reading a physical book?
We're seeing a growing "digital divide" between poor kids whose parents are too busy to supervise them all the time and choose to let screens raise them and rich kids whose parents increasingly keep them away from screens as much as possible.
No, the digital divide separates kids whose screen usage is rationally integrated into their lives as a way to explore the larger world, from those who use one device to do nothing but Instagram their meals to each other. Kids in the latter group typically had parents who were babysat by the tube.
Isn't the nature of the screen time tantamount?
Actually, it's paramount. Anyone who confuses those two words ought to be eaten by a catamount.
Not your personal army.
Have gnu, will travel.
The study just started, it's nowhere near complete. This is some early data to help promote the study.
That does not imply cause and effect.
Maybe, on average, people who spend more time in front of screens already score lower on thinking and language tests.
Studies showed that was true when pretty much the only available screen was the TV. Why should it be any different now?
Isn't the nature of the screen time tantamount (sic)? If the kid spends his screen time reading books, watching lectures, and discussing thought provoking content, isn't that obviously going to have a very different effect compared to scrolling through instagram all day?
While I suspect that most people will intuitively agree with your question / assertion, I'm not sure that the 'value judgements' that will almost certainly follow will necessarily hold water. You're also brushing over an equally valid question which is: Is the effect of reading paper books or attending a live lecture in person identical to the effect of reading the same book in electronic form or watching a video of the same lecture?
In her book,Mind Change, Susan Greenfield relates that the electronic forms of learning are, or at least tend to be, less effective than learning gained otherwise. This always made a certain amount of sense to me because of the way our brains seem to 'tag' memories, allowing access to them via various different routes. If, for example, all our reading is done on the same computer we're missing out on the 'physical' memories of the books (colour, size, weight, texture, location, smell, etc.) so we can no longer rely on them as individual keys to access the remembered content of those various books, we just have the one key trying to link to all the books we read on that device. Furthermore it's highly likely that we lose a physical sense of location within the books where a particular piece of information was first read. Weaker links lead to weaker memories, and weaker memories are less likely to be retained over time, at least without refreshing, hence strengthening, them.
In fairness, having linked to her book, I feel I should probably also link to a critique of her work and stated opinions, not only in the interests of balance, but also because it's easy to become blinded by what we believe to be true to the point that we no longer question that belief.
Your statement / question seems to me to run a very real risk of falling into this category of belief.
The study just started, it's nowhere near complete. This is some early data to help promote the study.
My point exactly.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
LOL
Yeah, but it's not very good for their eyes. And you can't argue against the brain's need for a wider range of input, lest some parts atrophy or are taken over by other functions.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
A wheelchair is a transformative mobility device, if you put young children in them instead of teaching them to walk
So I guess all of us that had bikes growing up are permanently crippled....
Oh wait.
Everyone learn to deal with real world things because they are so prevalent. But to ALSO teach them to use a device that can enhance their own abilities mightily, be it foot power or intellect... that is no less than enlarging the scope of what they can do over an entire life.
Lesson complete.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Correlation is not causation. Are the kids who are allowed to spend more than 2 hours a day on screens getting the same quality of parental care as others? Could *that* be affecting their development?