TIME FOR A DIGITAL DETOX
Our children average five hours a day in front of screens, harming their health and their minds. It’s time to act, says Rosie Morton
Parents need to take control of childrens' internet addiction
If mobile phones are such wonderful inventions, why are well-informed parents in Silicon Valley – the global epicentre for tech giants like Apple, Facebook and Google – sending their children to tech-free schools?
Following the example of industry leaders like Bill Gates, who only gave his children phones when they were 14, and Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs, who would not allow his children iPads, many Silicon Valley executives are curbing their kids’ screen-time by sending them to schools like The Waldorf School of the Peninsula – an elementary school in California that teaches children to explore the world without the internet. So is the vision of high-tech classrooms and internet-led lifestyles really in the best interests of future generations?
With 22 billion texts sent every day worldwide – that’s excluding app-to-app messages, Instagram posts, Tweets and Facebook messages – most of us would admit to needing a digital detox. With countless hours being lost to aimless internet browsing, attention is turning to the negative health consequences of excessive internet usage.
Over the past decade, cases of internet addiction have risen sharply. Researchers from mobile connectivity firm, iPass, revealed some horrifying statistics, finding that an astonishing 81% of Scots have our smartphones within arm’s reach 24 hours a day, while 83.5% check our phones in bed. Even more concerning, 23% would choose Wi-Fi access over daily essentials like a bath or a shower, with 19% of those choosing it over human interaction.
When leading mobile network provider O2 experienced a 24-hour outage at the end of 2018, it served as a reminder of our reliance on technology. What became known as ‘the O2-calamity’ hit anguished Millennials where it hurts as 32 million Britons had to cope for a whole day without social media. An entire day without posting pictures of breakfast – how our ancestors would have laughed.
While some may declare it a mere symptom of modern-day life, this increased screen-time is not only changing our behavioural patterns, it is also affecting the neuroplasticity of our brains. Research published by The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health Journal claims that by spending just two hours a day in front of a screen, our brains – and our children’s brains – are being rewired. After tracking the daily habits of 4,500 children, they ran cognitive tests on them. They found that recreational screen-time weakened the child’s memory by changing the way the neurones in their brain communicate.
Take, for example, the use of search engines. With the web at our fingertips, it has never been easier to look up facts, figures, or to research information we’ve long forgotten. Some schools, in stark contrast to The Waldorf School of the Peninsula, are actively encouraging the use of Google during class time. But if we rely on Google Maps to get us from A to B, our memory might as well be kicking back, relaxing with a nice cup of tea – it is at a complete stand still.
What’s more, The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health Journal proved that prolonged exposure to screens, particularly in the early stages of a child’s development, causes a decrease in attention span and language skills.
Though many people still squirm uncomfortably at the thought of pacifying a child with an iPad or an iPhone for prolonged periods, it is now sufficiently common that the NHS provides online tips for teens battling with insomnia associated with excessive mobile phone usage.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health says that adverse health effects are brought on by lost opportunities for positive activities like socialising, sleep and exercise that are displaced by excessive screen-time.
This has led to a situation where The UK Chartered Society of Physiotherapists are now seeing back pain caused by ‘text neck’ in children as young as seven, resulting in spinal damage in some extreme cases. According to Ofcom’s Digital Dependency report, 49% of our teenagers check their phones within five minutes of waking up.
Increased screen-time has gone hand in hand with a rise in child obesity. Nearly a quarter of Scottish children starting Primary One last year were overweight or obese. Time that was once spent throwing a ball in the garden with parents or rolling in the mud with siblings, has now been replaced by the incessant exercising of the thumbs. Those thumbs have become more dexterous than ever before, with Dr Sadie Plant of Warwick University showing that children are now using their thumbs for activities, such as pointing, that were once done by fingers.
There are apps being introduced to encourage us to monitor our screen-time more closely. An app called Forest, for instance,
“49% of teenagers check their phones within five minutes of waking up
allows you to set a time you want to stay focused for. In that time a tree will grow from a seed into a full, magnificent oak. If you check Instagram or SnapChat or Google, your tree will wither and die. As well as this, parental locks on social media – only allowing emergency phone calls to be made after two hours of surfing – could help resolve issues associated with excessive screen-time.
Though guidelines are set out by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, recommending no more than two hours’ screen-time per day for children, guidelines are patently not enough. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of the books of Silicon Valley families, opening tech-free schools. Or from Taiwan, where parents are legally obliged to monitor their child’s screen-time – if they allow under-18s to use screens excessively, they face a fine of £1,000.
Losing ourselves in a virtual world seems such a waste when the real world is so much more meaningful and beautiful than any enhanced Instagram picture. But if we expect our children to exercise self-discipline then we are deluding ourselves. It’s time for parents to start acting like grown-ups and save their children from themselves by limiting screen time.