Tapping into new reality
THEY grew up smudging smartphones, toddling on tablets, and having milestones recorded in apps and digital photos.
The first generation of truly digital natives, dubbed “screenagers,” will graduate primary school this year but experts say technology is not making their lives easier.
Early learning educators and psychologists warn excessive screen time is exacerbating sleep problems, increasing homework distractions, and causing an unprecedented level of family disputes in Australia.
And while the technology can also be beneficial – delivering new ways to learn and easier access to information – experts say there’s no definitive research on the risks and fate of this tech-savvy generation.
Born at the tail end of Generation Z, social researcher Mark McCrindle describes screenagers as growing up when society “started looking at screens more than faces”.
Children who will graduate primary school this year were born the same year Apple released its iPhone in Australia, when Google launched Android phone software, and when Spotify let music lovers rent many songs rather than buy a few.
These children were also the first to attend schools where technology played a major part in the curriculum, and in an era in which you could return home to a nextgen game controller, tablet computer, or social media.
Child psychologist Brad Marshall said the impact of so much extra screen time was not fully known as studies had yet to catch up to the pace of technological change.
“This is the first generation where technology will affect them their whole childhood,” he said.
“We won’t know the full effects of it until we have a generation go through it.”
But Dr Marshall, who runs a clinic for children in Sydney, said early signs of its impact were not all positive, with the number of young patients to his clinic rising “steadily since 2011,” many presenting with serious gaming and internet problems.
Even children without addictive issues could experience setbacks as a result of high device use, he warned, as the blue light emitted by electronic screens was affecting the sleep of many children.
A recent study by the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience found teens who looked at a screen for more than four hours a day took an average of 30 minutes longer to fall asleep and wake up than children who spent one hour in front of a screen.
“If too many screens have an impact on a young child’s sleep, they’re probably not taking in the information they need to in school,” Dr Marshall warned.
“The impact on learning at a primary school level are maybe not as profound as learning for a teenager. The stakes will rise later in their schooling careers.”