Parenting in the age of tech
Devices erode kids’ ‘protective’ links to real people, pediatrician says
Setting limits on screen time is an obsolete method of protecting children from harmful media consumption, an American expert on child media exposure says.
Gaming, surfing the web or watching movies with your kids is a better way to make sure they’re doing age-appropriate activities in moderation, said Dr. Michael Rich, a Boston pediatrician and professor, and founder and director of the Center on Media and Child Health.
Technology brings the possibility of exposure to bullying, violence, smoking and other negative influences. Instead of avoiding it, parents and teachers should help children and teens use technology to create, Rich said.
“Whether it’s robotics, whether it’s videos, whether it’s poetry blogging … it shows them that these are constructed things. This is not reality. This video game is not the way the world is — someone built it,” Rich said at a research colloquium in Edmonton Friday.
When children spend too much time alone in front of screens, their developing brains fail to make or maintain the crucial connections they gain from interacting with other people, he said.
Rich, who diagnoses and treats adolescents whose digital media use turns compulsive, said his patients almost always have mental health problems, including obsessive compulsive disorder or an anxiety disorder.
Few research studies prove violent movies turn teens aggressive or excessive television leads to obesity, he said. However, evidence of a correlation between children’s exposure to violence in movies, television and games and the development of anxiety, desensitization and aggression is substantial, Rich said. It’s a public health risk we ignore at our peril.
Among statistics Rich shared were that tweens spend nearly six hours a day, on average, looking at computer screens, TVs, phones and tablets. That doubles to nearly 12 hours when in the teen years.
“Because of the way we use these devices, these devices that connect us to the entire world and to each other, we’re becoming disconnected from each other. We are putting them in between us. We know from the adolescent medicine literature that connectedness with family, with community, with school, is incredibly protective.”
He recommends adopting a technological “Sabbath” day by ditching phones and laptops one day a week. If that’s not possible, try family dinners with the TV off and phones away from the table.
Teachers, health-care workers and other professionals attended colloquium, looking for guidance on how to cope with the effects of children growing up in an environment saturated with technology.
“I think it’s really emerging as an issue that people really aren’t sure how to navigate,” said David Grauwiler, executive director of the Alberta division of the Canadian Mental Health Association.
More Albertans are looking for help or resources for dealing with problematic technology use, he said. Schools, especially, need more guidance on how students should be using devices.
Devices arrived in classrooms well before we understood the implications of their use, he said.
“I think we’re not keeping pace with technological advancements. So, you’ve got kids who are hooked on media, but they really don’t have any idea. Or, who are experiencing anxiety around social media, etc., but they don’t have the necessary tools or skills to reduce that anxiety.”
An Alberta Teachers’ Association-led research project, Growing Up Digital, is trying to gauge some of those effects of technology on children.