Plonking toddlers in front of screens does lasting damage to their brains

By Pol Allingham via SWNS

Plonking toddlers in front of a screen does lasting damage to their brains, according to a new study.

The harm done to screen-watching infants persists into late childhood, after the age of eight, say scientists.

Kids found it difficult to stay alert, control impulses and emotions, sustain attention, follow multi-step instructions and persist in a difficult task, according to Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS).

These executive functioning deficits correlated with long screen times as an infant increasing the number of “low-frequency” waves in the brain.

Each skill is essential for learning and school performance.

Researchers revealed excessive screen time is one environmental activity that can interfere with developing executive function.

Toddlers struggle to process information on a two-dimensional screen because they are bombarded with streams of fast-paced movements, blinking lights and scene changes.

A lot of cognitive resources are required to make sense of what they’re watching - as an infant, the brain becomes “overwhelmed” and unable to leave enough mental tools to develop cognitive skills such as executive function.

Brains grow rapidly from when a child is born until early childhood but the part of the brain behind executive functioning - the prefrontal cortex - takes longer to form.

Our delayed prefrontal development means executive function skills can be shaped right up to higher education.

But it also makes executive functioning skills highly vulnerable to environmental influences over a period of time.

Professor Chong Yap Seng, Dean of NUS Medicine and Chief Clinical Officer, SICS, said: “These findings from the GUSTO study should not be taken lightly because they have an impact on the potential development of future generations and human capital.

“With these results, we are one step closer to better understanding how environmental influences can affect the health and development of children.

“This would allow us to make more informed decisions in improving the health and potential of every Singaporean by giving every child the best start in life.”

The team feared families allowing very young children to spend hours on a screen often face additional challenges such as food or housing insecurity, and mood disorders among parents.

They called for more work on understanding why kids use screens too much, and to distinguish between the direct effect of screen use from other family factors that may harm the brain.

Lead author Dr. Evelyn Law from NUS Medicine and SICS’s Translational Neuroscience Programme, said: “The study provides compelling evidence to existing studies that our children’s screen time needs to be closely monitored, particularly during early brain development.”

When children reached 12 months parents reported the average amount of screen time on weekdays and weekends every week.

Children were ranked into four groups - less than one hour a day watching screens, one to two hours, two to four hours and over four hours.

At 12 and 18 months the kids’ brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG), in the JAMA Pediatrics study.

Once they turned nine the youngsters took a series of brain tests, measuring their attention span and executive functioning.

EEG readings revealed infants exposed to longer screen time had more “low frequency” waves, matching their struggles to stay alert.

Professor Michael Meaney, Programme Director of the Translational Neuroscience Programme at SICS, added: “In a country like Singapore, where parents work long hours and kids are exposed to frequent screen viewing, it’s important to study and understand the impact of screen time on children’s developing brains.”