Screen Use Tied to Children’s Brain Development
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"There was no statistical significant association between ScreenQ and cognitive score when the analysis accounted for income."
I wonder if the journalists didn't read the full paper, or if they read it but decided to publish these two paragraphs, which give the impression that the physical results are tied to cognitive performance.
> After controlling for age, gender and income, the children with higher ScreenQ scores had lower measures of structural integrity and myelination, especially in tracts involved with language and literacy skills.
The researchers also tested the children cognitively, looking at measures of language and early literacy. The results of the cognitive tests correlated well with the children’s screen exposure; the children with higher screen exposure had poorer expressive language and did worse on tests of language processing speed, like rapidly naming objects.
Researcher: Looks like we found it doesn't matter, that much!
Journalist: So it did matter?
Editor: What matters?
Heading: Something mattered
Intern: Finishes the blog
Me: Oh! Let me better click this.
Analytics: Clickbait works!
I wish there really was a real conspiracy rather than just mere incompetence and greed. I suppose what is established is screentime affects eyesight and that's about it.
Thank for digging up the article!
The guessing can continue, but the authors and the data in their small study says it pretty clearly: It's the income, guys!
There seems to be no proof that it matters that much, although I suspect that managing screen addiction becomes important at later ages. It's possible that letting kids have some screen time at younger ages, and teaching them from the get-go about the dangers of over-consumption/addiction, could end up being a very valuable parenting technique in the long run.
Obviously the example you gave makes intuitive sense, but there doesn’t seem to be any research or other evidence to support it at this time.
Also, yes, there is a tie between income, education and culture, and it goes both ways. Starting one's life around cultured and educated people does help you grow into someone who has access to a better job, which gives you access to better education and culture, etc.
I grew up in a household where my sister and I were beneficiaries of a high earning father. My mother stayed home with us and never let us watch TV. Then my brother came along and when he was 3 and I was 7, my father lost his business. Almost overnight, our lives changed, and I recall walking home from school (this was surprisingly common in Queens in 1995) and immediately plopping down in front of the TV with my brother while both my parents worked.
It wasn’t until I had a child of my own when my mother told us how she painfully remembers having to make this choice: “we had no money, and we couldn’t afford a caretaker. On the one hand, we could have lived in worse conditions, and I would have bored you to death. On the other hand, there was 0% chance of vacations and showing you all various cultures- but with cable TV, you all had a better chance of acquiring culture.”
Conclusion: I didn’t get much screen time until about 7. My brother got a lot of it from 3. Let’s just say the data (n=3) shows that there is a positive correlation in cognitive development for the 1 of us who watched excessive TV around pre-school age vs. the others. I will never let my kids watch as much TV as my brother did when I was 3, but this is purely a function of money- I’m very fortunate to make good money and able to throw $60k a year on daycare + activities + nanny to provide entertainment away from the TV. By extension, Money is the causal factor.
Additionally, I don't understand the resulting outcome. Are you saying more tv was a negative or positive?
I think that a parent that just stuffs a tablet into their young child's hands and then lets them use it for up to twelve hours was not ready to have kids: either emotionally or in terms of how they prioritize the various things in their lives. And in such (hopefully) extreme cases, all kinds of developmental problems would seem like the natural consequence. Kids need their parents. It is just that simple (and difficult, at times).
Parents need to introspect a lot before parenting. They need to be aware of their weaknesses, complexes, where they lack and ensure the behaviour stemming from their issues is not affecting kids negativiely. But in an age where everyone is focussed on their work and getting ahead parenting is not taken seriously and is even outsourced to third party.
Forgive me if I'm way off here.
I suspect my sister and I averaged close to 6 hours a day reading books up until the age of 14 or so. I wonder if it screwed us up.
I spent a lot of time reading as a kid, and very little time with others. Bad socialisation can cost you dearly.
Also was often reading in poorly lit areas, not great for eyesight.
If you take it away, would these people be eating fruit&veg, or would they be starving?
[edit] actually boring’s not right—it was just easier to know whether there was anything you wanted to watch on. With the Internet the answer is always “yes”, you just may not have found it yet.
I feel that unless it is funded to test 》10,000 participants, you wont arrive at a sensible conclusion because of the amount of variables involved.
I can imagine kids that get a lot of attention, play with other kids, etc, are going to spend less time in front of a screen. You might really just be measuring loneliness by proxy.
I also feel the tragedy is not money, its freedom. My parents were free to roam the whole village from the age of 8, would get into all kinds of trouble, 'borrow' and ride random horses they found in the field, etc. And that was normal.
These days kids often experience no freedom till late teens, or possibly university.
This is a well known phenomenon across the western world. You can easily find tons of research on the subject.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children...