Technology is Ruining the Developing Brain

Over the years, we have discovered how technology has taken over our society, but did we know how bad and addictive it would get? To begin with, a family took their child to the doctor because the child cannot engage unless their is a screen in front of his face. The studies the doctors concluded that his excessive use of media and technology has led to his brain’s frontal cortex to look similar to that of one who is addicted to cocaine. Parents who reward their children with technological use for good behavior are enabling and inducing the slow or impaired development of their child’s brain. Scientific experts have come up with the idea of a “digital drug” which is simply the overuse of technology. This digital drug can be just as addictive as any deathly drug; we get hooked on the feeling we get while using technology which continues to keep us coming back for more and more.

Developing brains, specifically those of infants and young children, are special because of how fragile they are. Over 90% of parents allow their children to use digital technology before the age of one; pediatricians have proved that this is a way on enabling a lack of development in the child’s brain. Scientists and pediatricians have proven that the use of technology before eighteen months can lead to social problems, corrupted language development, sleep, and obesity issues later in life. These abnormal symptoms of behavior have led to doctors in France to conclude that this overuse of technology can lead to “virtual autism”. Overall, the use of technology and young children should be completely prohibited due to how many studies have proven it’s negative impacts on the development of infants. Unfortunately, the overuse of mixing technology and children will be hard to stop. I believe that there should be rules and regulations set in place by the government and technology to not allow parents to give their children Ipad’s, Iphone’s, etc. before the acceptable age. There are scientific facts that prove how unhealthy it is for a child to experience and play with something at such a developmental time in their life. After reading an article like this, would you think twice before you gave your child an electronic? Do you think electronics effected you while growing up?

Light, Leah. “Digital Media Is ‘Like Cocaine’ for Babies’ Developing Brains.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 7 Nov. 2018, health.usnews.com/health-care/for-better/articles/2018-11-07/is-digital-media-bad-for-babies-developing-brains.

12 thoughts on “Technology is Ruining the Developing Brain

  1. For me personally, this blog post hits close to home. For most of my childhood, I did not have the fancy gadgets and games that many of my friends growing up had. One of the greatest things was getting to go on a play date and get to use these toys for myself. In my house however, down time was used to play with legos, or go outside and run around the basketball court until it got dark. In the moment, I was disappointed that I could not come home and play video games, but looking back I was able to develop lots of personal skills and other necessary skills as a result. I look now at my cousins ever time we go for holidays, and see them engrossed in their phones at the age of 10 and think to myself that they would be better off enjoying family time. Technology can certantly be addictive, so hearing about the effects of this addition prove that there is indeed “too much of a good thing”.

  2. I agree with author’s opinion in this article. Technology truly has a negative effect on children’s brain development to some extent. However, as the proverb says, “everything has two sides”. The new technology can both has a good or bad effect in different ways on children’s thinking or focus. I believe that this depends on what technology applied to children and how often they use that technology in daily life. In conclusion, the best way should be making a balance between the time spent on screen and other activities. Appropriate spending on technology can help children better develop their brain.
    Resources: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus

  3. It is crazy how technology is advancing today and what has become acceptable. I didn’t get a cell phone until I was 13 years old. Nowadays you see kids in elementary school with iPhones, iPads, etc. The younger generation seems to be even more glued to their electronic devices and I thought my generation was bad with it. Kids should be outside playing during their early years. They shouldn’t be glued to their phone, TV, or video games all day as they are missing out on precious moments to be made in their child hood, and obviously hurting their brain as well. I found this article specifically interesting because I directly know someone who’s child suffers from https://harkla.co/blogs/special-needs/autism-screen-timesymptoms of virtual autism. So no this is not a joke and something people are exaggerating to get people off their phones, but a real life issue. We need to do a better job of trying to keep children away from these electronic devices as I can only see this issue continue to get worse if nothing is done about it.
    Here is a link that gives more information on the seriousness of virtual autism.
    https://harkla.co/blogs/special-needs/autism-screen-time

  4. I agree with this idea, but no wholeheartedly. Networks like Nick Jr. and Disney jr. have worked to create entertaining yet educational cartoons for children to enjoy. For pre-school age kids, these networks are helpful in building on creativity, social-emotional skill, cognitive ability, etc. As stated, in months old children, the bright colors and fast motion confuses and distracts them, slowing and interrupting the development. It is a terrible consequence of technology, but the idea that it can be regulated and controlled in the millions of households isn’t feasible. It would take years to pass regulations, and begs the questions on how exactly the government could regulate tech use in households without violating privacy. The best way to go about this issue, is to inform and teach parents all over the country the consequences of allowing or encouraging children under 18 months to engage with technological devices. Spreading the information, allowing parents to make their own decisions with that information (hopefully choosing to hold off on technology) avoids going through the trouble and possible breach of privacy that creating regulations would bring.

    Sources:
    Pantley, E. (2011, October 03). Should Babies and Toddlers Watch Television? Retrieved 2018, from https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/family-living/kids-media-safety/television/babies-television/#.W-iMMqfMyqA

  5. In 2018, a human adult that is of the age 18 or older spends on average about 11 hours and 6 minutes with some sort of screen in front of them(MarketWatch). This could be the TV, social media on someones phone, or a computer at work (MarketWatch). As adults use more and more technology, what impacts do you think will happen to their children? The article BIF5296 shows exactly what happened. More and more adults are letting young children become attached to the screen to soon! From person experience, I didn’t get my first phone until about the 6th or 7th grade and before that all I had to do was watch TV. Ever since I have gotten an iphone, I feel like I can’t live without it. The phone is always on me and when we have free time, I always feel myself reaching to look at posts on social media or text messages from my mom concerned how I am doing at college. I believe this “Digital Drug” from BIF5296’s article can affect more than just the young children. We all see our world through our screens mostly, never living the memory at hand.

    “MarketWatch.” Choice Reviews Online, vol. 44, no. 01, Jan. 2006, doi:10.5860/choice.44-0410.

  6. “After reading an article like this, would you think twice before you gave your child an electronic? Do you think electronics affect you while growing up?”

    I did not have any open access to the internet/have a phone until I was 12, so while I would probably allow monitored electronics for my child like a video game, I would not give them their own phone/internet access until way later. I do not think I have been affected by the internet growing up, but I don’t think the internet was as widely used when we were kids than it is for kids today… This is the first time I’ve felt old.

    Regardless, I found this article extremely upsetting. There is still a lot to discover about the internet which is really exciting, but at the same time we are learning new ways that the internet can harm our youth. Correlations made between internet use and obesity, social skills, addictive behaviors, and even things like issues developing posture for children can be disheartening, so I hope the next generation of parents are able to understand the workings of the internet so they can limit how often their child uses it. In my opinion, there is too much on the internet that a child does not need to be exposed to for me to be comfortable with children using the internet as an accepted mainstream concept.

    Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792691/

  7. Even though, technology makes people’s lives easier in many different ways, I totally agree that parents need to keep technological devices away from their children until certain age. First few years are the most important years in child growth because children become more curious in these ages, and want to learn thing around them. Therefore, they need their parents rather than technology because technology might lead children to wrong things. There is no right or wrong on Internet because there is no judge and restriction. Thus, parents should not allow their children to access this kind of environment in these early ages because they are too young to distinguish right and wrong. Instead of technology, children need their parents to learn about right and wrong. Also, those ages are really important for emotional development of the children. Spending time with iPad cannot help them to observe and learn certain feelings and emotions, and unfortunately, this might cause bigger problems like personality disorder and unhappiness in older ages. In addition, technology can only give a fake reality to children so they may never be able to observe the real world. Basically, technology is real as the algorithm running on the technological devices. Unfortunately, those algorithms cannot simulate the real world because there are still some grey areas that cannot be explained and understood by science. Therefore, children should spend time with their peers and family, play games, and socialize to understand the world instead of spending hours in front of fake reality devices.

    Article link: https://medium.com/thrive-global/will-technology-ruin-your-childrens-development-663351c76974

  8. I find this to be one of the biggest issues of future generations. Being born in 1996 I think I was one of the last groups of people who missed the full wave of technology taking over, where I experienced it more in high school. Reading the part about the child’s frontal cortex showing similar reactions to that of a cocaine addict is scary. It is truly is a scary truth though. Children no longer go outside to play and stimulate themselves in many other ways other than the screen of a computer, tablet, or cell phone. Their minds are very malleable at such a young age and I believe there needs to be more restraint from parents regarding access to these technologies. “The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It’s what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized”. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus) This quote I pulled from Psychology today is very important to think about when we think about these kids growing up with their faces glued to the screens. These important things such as the capacity to reflect and reason and to communicate are not completely inhibited by using technology for a young person but it takes away from the real life interaction which is the very core piece of being human. I think we won’t see the drastic effects until this generation is older and it is important that we deal with and find solutions to the consequences that come with it.

  9. I agree that technology can have detrimental effects on childhood development, however, we now live in a world where almost everyone has exposure to technology and will have to throughout their entire lives. Taking technology away from children all together could be detrimental, as technology has been shown to have many positive effects on education, including giving kids a more individualized education and allowing for teachers to keep track of the individual needs of each child.

    https://www.capella.edu/blogs/cublog/benefits-of-technology-in-the-classroom/

  10. I think over dependence of technology would eventually decrease the learning potential and learning abilities for children, but technology does have positive contributions in education for the younger generations. Digital technology is a very effective and vivid way for content illustration and interaction. Children could benefit from the use of digital technology by interacting and screening the content in an interesting way. Therefore, I think teachers and institutions could utilize digital technology for educational purpose, but parents should not use the digital technology as a way of rewarding their children. Because such way would encourage children to take it as a way of entertainment rather than use it for learning. This following article and diagram shows how educational video games really work. For example, over 70% of teachers said that using educational video games does improve student’s engagement, and more than 60% teachers said that digital games helped personalize instruction, better access of knowledge and collect helpful information. https://edtechtimes.com/2012/10/24/do-educational-video-games-actually-work/

  11. After reading that article, I would definitely think twice about putting an electronic device in front of my child. My boss has two children, one is 4 years of age and the other is 2. Any time that I spend with them, as soon as I pull out my phone, they immediately refer there attention to it no matter what they’re doing. To me, this is unacceptable for children of this age to be so reliant on a phone when they haven’t even learned to speak correctly, let alone read or write. However, I do think that if there is a good balance of technological use and traditional learning, that children will be well prepared for the world of technology that we now live in. Too much exposure to technology could wire children to learn differently that may not result in readiness. Therefore we need to continue to motivate our children to be active and use their imagination the way we did when we grew up.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201212/how-technology-is-changing-the-way-children-think-and-focus

  12. I agree at a very young age, before the child knows right from wrong, it can be detremental for the child to use technology. However there are plenty of studies out there that in later childhood technology improves developement and increase learning and attention in class. This is because there are games that the child can play to keep the learning interesting and keep the child engaged in the topic.
    With this said many parents do sit their child infront of a screen and let them watch youtube. This has been exploited by certain people to bypass safe content on the kids youtube app to show groosem and innappropriate videos. Youtube is not the only company that falls victim but it is the largest.
    I agree that putting children infornt of a screen before they are ready can decrease learning potential but when they start pre-school technology can improve and help learning.

    https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/4/16736242/youtube-children-kids-inappropriate-elsagate-hate-speech-moderation

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