"Only direct communication with another man is the basis for deep information processing"[*] – Manfred Spitzer.
Children are not born with the request to usage a smartphone or tablet; addiction is due to us adults.
We are increasingly watching small, yet unspeakable children cry and cry their favourite “digital toy”. erstwhile they receive it, they are silent and immobilized, frost staring at the screen, narrowing the field of sight to a tiny cutout and eliminating the accommodative movements of the eye.
Infants, looking at the screen, see only rapidly moving colored spots, do not admit objects or persons. A tv screen of 12×16 inches has limited imagination to 6–7 degrees. Watching images on the screen means immobility of the accommodation muscles. The ‘set’ distance from the screen shall not be changed. If a child, driving in a wheelchair, alternatively of bowing his head over a smartphone, could see the planet around them, see people approaching and moving away, trees, cars, flying birds, his eyes would decision in the field of sight to 200 degrees. Looking at the screen simultaneously weakens peripheral vision, resulting in slower motor development, weaker coordination and incorrect full body stability.
Without experience in the real world, children do not learn to admit objects in a three-dimensional space.
An highly crucial relation has shown the investigation of the center of any movement of the eyeballs, located in the key to intellectual and social improvement of the frontal cortex. Well, during free perception, for example during walking, in 20 seconds the eyes execute 40 to 100 movements, while reading (but not on the screen) were recorded 40 to 55, looking at the screen the eyeballs execute only 5 to 7 movements. It is worth remembering that the eye analyzer is at the latest a mature sense, and it is early experience that shapes the child's visual cortex.
When a kid looks at the screen, he besides builds incorrect connections between the imagination and hearing. The visual and auditory stimuli coming from the screen do not correlate as in the real world. A child, looking at an animated story, hears a voice flowing from speakers, but does not integrate stimuli, does not combine information flowing through the auditory and visual channels.
When in the real planet something moves at the front on the left, the sound besides comes at the front on the left. This allows the brain to form the perception of space on the basis of specified dependence. deficiency of experience of multisensory sight – proceeding – contact – movement, besides importantly affects speech development. In the area where the tv is enabled, music, electronic toy kid hears speech as sound, but does not perceive to it (does not decode). Children become somewhat impregnable into the tongue, the sounds of speech are considered irrelevant by the brain. due to the fact that neural networks work according to the principles of competitiveness, moving images and loud sounds (e.g. in advertisements) automatically “eliminate” the reception of language information. "The introduction of electronic media to kindergartens and primary schools is simply a kind of involving children in digital drug abuse" (Spitzer, 2013).
The generation of children born in the age of advanced technology varies their relation with the planet and people, which has a negative impact on the acquisition of the language strategy and communication, and above all the improvement of social and emotional competences.
Early stimulation with advanced technologies causes irreversible changes in the cerebral cortex of tiny children. Above all, it inhibits the formation of the primate structures of the left hemisphere for the processing of language (speech and writing). "Without individual interpersonal stimulation, the network of kid neurons may undergo atrophy and the brain may not make average social skills" (Small, Vorgan, 2011, p. 51). The generation of the 21st century differs from people whose brains evolved at a time erstwhile direct social interaction was the norm. Transformations in the construction of neural pathways take place present over decades, not as they utilized to be for millennia!
The high-tech revolution has caused many children to have a permanent partial distraction (continuous partial attention) which means paying attention to everything without focusing on anything.
But, according to cognitive psychologists, the basis for intellectual improvement is the working remark, which determines the retention of information essential for effective action.
Why, then, are parents so eagerly assured of the affirmative impact of computer programs on children’s intellectual development? The explanation of this story is highly simple – tv for infants brings a profit of about $500 million a year[1]. Educational computer games are fiction, they only trigger those parts of the frontal lobe that are liable for seeing and seeing motion. Changes in the cerebral cortex are primarily made at the expense of the neural network controlling social interactions. In the brain, dopamine is secreted during the game, causing intense pleasance and giving a deceptive sense of control. Dopamine transmits information to the pleasance center, which causes the addict to want to repeat the action endlessly, forgetting everything around it.
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The survey results, which are only indicative, showed that even infants spend quite a few time in front of the screen. 9 months around 40 and an yearly 60 minutes a day. In view of baby naps during the day, small time remains to play in diades [the smallest social group of 2 people – ed.], determining the improvement of communication and empathy, or the ability to sympathize with another person. Two-, three- and four-year-olds usage advanced technology 2-3 hours a day.
It is worth asking yourself erstwhile children will build social relations and make creative thinking.
Safe usage of technology
The American Pediatric Academy and the Canadian Pediatric Society set a safe time to usage advanced technologies. Up to 3 years of full ban on screens, in the 4th and 5th years of age 1 hr a day, nonviolent films. Older children up to 12 years of age 2 hours a day, and the usage of computer games 30 minutes a day only after their 13th birthday.
Such restrictive time limits do not seem constructive. Already in the first class students participate in computer discipline classes, make presentations, evidence films. It is wise to accept Davis' proposal (2001) that healthy usage of the net requires the ability to separate online communication from communication in everyday life, so that advanced technologies are not an identity origin and do not lead to cognitive or behavioural discomfort. However, for the youngest users, the work for setting limits for the safe usage of fresh digital technologies lies with parents and carers.
According to research[2], almost 12% of infants aged 12 months and over 36% of children between 12 and 24 months of age are in contact with e-media in Poland.
This means that statistically all second kid in Poland may be at hazard of developing e-dependence even before the start of the 3rd year.
According to experts[3], the safe usage of e-media by children and young people should be adapted to developmental age, for educational, self-development, social and recreational purposes. But above all, it should not affect the user emotionally and cognitively more than alternate offline activities. First of all, the usage of advanced technologies must not affect the activity in the real world. Children of pre-school age should usage advanced technologies only together with a carer.
Primary school students usage advanced technology not to search for information, but to treat it as a form of spending time. Watching short videos on the telephone is the most common e-activity among primary school students. More students aged 7–14 usage digital technologies to browse social networks than to interact with household and friends or to support discipline (Wojtkowska and others, 2023). Studies show that in Poland, over 75% of children regularly usage advanced technology in their sixth year of age, almost all 5th of which can have access to adult content. The ban on utilizing smartphones at school can only be effective for building social relationships, which is highly crucial in the modern world, but not adequate to fight cyber dependence, as children are stuck in front of the screen primarily at home.
It is essential to make a safe usage of technology to maximise the benefits of it with simultaneous protection against the hazard of addiction.
This means new, very crucial tasks for schools to organise assistance for parents and students, in the form of training and workshops. Joint workshops with children besides have advanced effectiveness. It would be highly crucial to teach children and parents digital hygiene.
Brain cancer and digital immunity
A fresh kind of intellectual stress called brain-burning technology is observed in teenagers, as it results in changes in the neural network in the hippocampa, the structure liable for memory and learning, in the almond body, determining the building of emotional relationships, and above all in the frontal cortex.
As a result, more and more young people endure from depression, including an expanding number of children under fourteen.
The media is increasingly influencing the brain strategy of the user's prize, thus creating an expanding hazard of addiction.
One of the key factors of cyber dependence is the sense of loneliness, which increases the abuse of the Internet, which only strengthens social isolation. It is worth pointing out the worrying phenomenon parental phubbing (parent disregard of the kid for the phone) and aphubing (when a teenager, talking to his parent, uses a mobile phone).
Limiting the usage of mobile devices in schools will not produce the expected results if there is no common, consistent actions between teachers and parents.
It is essential to make a fresh social competence, which is digital immunity, and this means shaping the awareness of the young generation, but besides the generation of parents, which involves constructive usage of e-medias and strengthening motivation to usage them wisely. The youngest generation should learn to function safely in a reality in which cyberspace is constantly available in the child's environment.
Based on the results of expert studies[4], children's usage of digital devices has been developed. These are preventive recommendations for different age groups[5].
Children should never usage digital devices until their 3rd birthday, which clearly indicates the key function of the home environment. At pre-school age, which is simply a period of dynamic improvement of the language strategy and social skills, children may spend a maximum of 1 hr a day under parental supervision. From the age of six to nine, the key time of cognitive development, the usage of advanced technology should only take place under parental supervision, up to 2 hours a day. It is highly crucial to have no access to devices in your own room. It is only from the age of 9 to 12 that a kid can usage devices for educational purposes. This is an highly crucial period of media education and awareness-raising of cyberspace threats. At this time, the function of the school is very important, not only in teaching digital hygiene, but besides in organising specified offline activities, which, by providing affirmative emotions to students, destruct dependence on constantly being online. After 12 years of age, parents should monitor the usage of e-media on an ongoing basis and, above all, follow the household rules for utilizing digital devices.
However, limiting the contact of students with e-medias by controlling the time of usage or blocking access to content inadequate to the child's age does not lead to permanent behavioural changes. Therefore, programmes aimed at reducing the usage of e-medias, specified as Joint steps in the cyber world (with KCPU recommendation[6]) and Log in with your head (with MEN recommendation).
There are besides tools to diagnose children before achieving adolescence. E-MOI battery created in Poland (E-Media Overusing Inventory) has a B0 version designed to measure the hazard of e-dependence improvement among children aged 0 to 6 years on the basis of parental/careful observations. Tests with materials to facilitate measurement are available free of charge on the website www.kcpu.gov.pl/psychometric tests.
Footnotes:
[*] M. Spitzer, Digital dementia. How we deprive ourselves and our children of our minds, Słupsk 2013, p. 95
[1] (‘Spiegel Online’ 5 February 2011 – www.spiegel.de/culture/tv/0.1518, 742984,00.html, accessed 16.4.2012)
[2] Anna Wojtkowska, Agata Warzrowska, “Prophylaxis, diagnosis and therapy of e-dependence among children and adolescents. applicable manual for professionals working with children and their families”, Warsaw, Liberi Libri Publishing House, 2024
[3] IU
[4] Young, K. S. (2015). The 3-6-9-12 parenting guides for technology usage at home. In: K. S. Young and C. N. de Abreu (ed.), net addition in children and adolescents. hazard factors, assessment, and treatment (pp. 143–160). Springer Publishing Company.
[5] Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of e-dependence among children and adolescents. applicable manual for professionals working with children and their families A. Wojtkowska, A. Gąsiorowska (red) p. 362
[6] National Anti-Addicts Centre.
Recommended reading:
The president A shallow mind. How the net affects our brain, tr. K. Rojek, Warsaw 2012
The president Impact of advanced technologies on cognitive improvement of infants and minors [in:] (ed.) A. Ogonowska, G. Bird, Man, technology, media. Cultural and intellectual contexts. Kraków 2014
J. Cieszynska-Rożek, Neurobiological basis for cognitive development. Eyesight, Kraków 2019
The president What's going on out there? – How the brain and head make in the first 5 years, Poznań 2010
The president Telefooling. About the disastrous consequences of watching tv (not only by children), Warsaw 2012
R. A Davis, A cognitive-behavioral model of pathological net use. Com puters in Human Behavior, 17(2), 187–195, 2001
G. Small, G.Vorgan i Brain. How to last the Technological Change of Modern Mind, Poznań 2011
M. Spitzer, How does the brain learn?Kraków 2008
M. Spitzer, Digital dementia. How we deprive ourselves and our children of our minds, Słupsk 2013
The president Smartphone epidemic. Is he a threat to health, education, society?, Słupsk 2021
The president A Cold Look, Kraków 2008
A. Wojtkowska, E. Hewiak, A. Gąsiorowska, Abuse of electronic media by children and adolescents: a survey of the scale of the problem, its determinants and 2 models of preventive intervention, 2023. National Center against Addiction.
