Well fuck, I knew this would be bad, but damn. Groundbreaking NIH report just out; says tech has a measurable effect on children who had too much exposure to technology.
“In brain scans of 4,500 children, daily screen usage of more than seven hours showed premature thinning of the brain cortex, the outermost layer that processes information from the physical world.”
Well fuck me, I’ve let my 9 year old son use an iPhone since 2 and an iPad since 4, and he goes berserk if he’s told he can’t use technology. A common line is “but there’s nothing to do!” Or “everything is boring!” Another common phrase is “but I NEED technology to fill-in-the-blank.”
So, as this study presents early data on what could be a serious issue, what does Jow Forums think about these findings? For those of you who are younger (under 20), have you experienced any of these negative effects? For other fathers of young children like myself, have you had problems with this as well?
I’ve enacted strict limits on tech for my son, and also mandatory outside play time, as well as indoor activities that are NOT technology centric. He also wants to learn coding, which I figured was a good use of STEM and would set him on a promising career path, but now I’m not so sure that’s a great idea....after all, the verdict is still out on if ALL tech time is negative, or if truly educational content is okay in moderation (i.e., NOT video games, social media, salacious stories, access to porn, music videos that are nearly porn, etc.)
So Jow Forums, what to we do to confront this problem head on?
>children who spend more than two hours of daily screen time score lower on thinking and language tests Relax, I’m willing to bet the kids who scored lower are shitskins and they would rather blame technology than admit IQ differences.
Question: if this is true, does it have negative effect if also done in less quantities?
Cameron Parker
Try not to worry. I bet it’s bullshit, like the acid rain panic, the global warming panic, the skin cancer panic, the fukushima radiation in the ocean panic, the asteroid with Ebola heading right for us etc. if if was a genuine issue like vaccines, heavy metals poisoning or fluoride in the water they wouldn’t be writing articles about it. This is just to demoralize us
Bentley Adams
I don't trust studies like this unless they disappear in a day or two or the scientists don't lose their careers if they keep studying it. It undoubtedly has bad effects on young kids, though. If you are sitting and watching a screen you're not learning basic motor skills, spatial awareness, interacting with a real world as opposed to a world designed to simply entertain or push certain thoughts. I'm not sure if there's any studies to back this but I would also hypothesize that kids who grow up with too secondary of a lifestyle never reach their full physical growth potential. That activity creates physical hunger, which feeds the body the things it needs to grow. Without training your body to hunger to adapt to continually higher and higher levels of nourishment it seems likely that this sort of self-induced malnutrition would have the same effects as forced malnutrition. We know this plays a huge part in a population's growth as evidenced by North and South Korea developing between a 1.2 in to 3 in height difference in only 60 years or so.
Noah Williams
Everything changes the brain. Do you have proof the change is bad?
Owen Rodriguez
>actually falling for the antivax meme hahahahhahhahahhh you will never know how fucking dumb you are lmao@urlife
Charles Murphy
>It undoubtedly has bad effects >I'm not sure if there's any studies to back this
Joseph Walker
It's not the screen thats doing it, it's the wifi, and 3/4/5g radiation going through the brain.
Juan Cruz
If you guys wanted to, you could just read THE ACTUAL STUDY
MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTED ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 1 Screen Media Activity and Brain Structure in Youth: Evidence for Diverse Structural Correlation Networks from the ABCD Study Abbreviated title: Screen Media Activity and Brain Structure Martin P. Paulus, MD (1,2) Lindsay M. Squeglia, PhD (3) Kara Bagot, MD (2) Joanna Jacobus, PhD (2) Rayus Kuplicki, PhD (1) Florence J. Breslin (1) Jerzy Bodurka, PhD (1) Amanda Sheffield Morris, PhD (1,5) Wesley K. Thompson, PhD (4) Hauke Bartsch, Dr. rer. Nat. (6) Susan F. Tapert, PhD (2) (1) Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa OK (2) University of California San Diego, Department of Psychiatry (3) Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Addiction Sciences Division (4) University of California San Diego, Division of Biostatistics, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health (5) Oklahoma State University, College of Human Development and Family Science (6) University of California San Diego, Department of Radiology Correspondence: Martin P. Paulus Laureate Institute for Brain Research 6655 S Yale Ave Tulsa, OK 74136-3326
doesnt sound like it so far
Jayden Wilson
Played video games since I was 3, I'm 25 now. Through my teens I would struggle to find stuff to do outside of video games but these days i can do whatever. I'd say I would average at least 6 hours a day since I was 4 years old, probably why my wrists are fucked.
interesting cutouts from the actual research piece
4.2 Psychopathology, Cognition, and SMA Related Brain Structures The complex relationship between SMA and brain structure is further supported by examining its psychopathological and cognitive correlates. There was little evidence that SMA related brain structure differences were associated with internalizing pathology, i.e. increase in anxiety, depression, or other avoidance or withdrawal behaviors. Some have suggested that reduced volume and cortical thickness in frontolimbic regions may serve as a neurobiological predictors of emergent internalizing psychopathology in adolescence (Jones et al., 2017). However, others have observed delayed thinning in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in high anxious children (Newman et al., 2016). Thus, internalizing psychopathology may play a role in the development of cortical structures during adolescence; however, the current ABCD sample provides little evidence that SMA contributes to brain structure characteristics that can be related to internalizing behaviors. In comparison, we did find a strong relationship to externalizing psychopathology.
Joseph Morris
Specifically, those youth who had higher scores on GFA 1 and 4, i.e. had thinner occipital cortices and smaller volume in orbitofrontal areas as well as thinner hippocampi and smaller inferior-temporal cortical volumes, showed greater levels of externalizing psychopathology. Some investigators have reported, among other areas, increased externalizing in individuals with thinner parahippocampal gyrus (Gold et al., 2016), whereas others showed that youths with conduct disorder had reduced cortical thickness in the superior temporal gyrus and sulcal pathology in orbitofrontal cortex, as well as increased cortical folding in the insula (Fairchild et al., 2015). The current study adds to these findings that some of these effects may also be related to SMA. The complexity of SMA associated structural brain characteristics extends to the relationship with cognitive performance. In particular, for both fluid and crystalized intelligence, some GFAs were related to better performance whereas others related to poorer performance on these tests.
Gavin Howard
For fluid intelligence, GFA2, which loaded on gaming activities and greater cortical thinning in prefrontal areas and increased orbitofrontal volume, showed a positive relationship, whereas GFA4 which loaded on social media and reduced hippocampal thickness and lower inferior-temporal cortical gray matter volume, showed a strong negative relationship. Others have shown a relationship between cognitive abilities and structural variability in medial frontal lobes and paracingulate (Fornito et al., 2008). Moreover, a series of investigations have examined the relationship between brain structures and cognitive control in the context of internet gaming disorder. Some of the investigators found widespread reduction of cortical volume (Lin et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2015; Yuan et al., 2013), whereas others have found more circumscribed cortical thickness and gray matter volume reduction most notably within the orbitofrontal cortex (Altbacker et al., 2016; Park et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2017), but also in frontal pole volume (Kuhn and Gallinat, 2015). The diversity of these findings underscores that SMA does not have a simple effect on fluid intelligence but rather exerts differential effects via different brain networks.
Jayden Young
>force parents to lock their children in a small room all day everyday >dont allow children autonomy
Why are they using screens so much!!!!
Isaac Collins
The SMA associated structural brain characteristics were most strongly related to crystalized intelligence, which are more dependent on experience, represent accumulated store of verbal knowledge and skills, and are influenced by education and cultural exposure (Akshoomoff et al., 2013). Here, GFA 1 and 4, which were general and social media related SMA that loaded strongly on occipital and orbitofrontal areas, showed the strongest negative relationship to crystallized intelligence. In contrast, GFA2, which loaded strongly gaming and was associated with thinner prefrontal cortices but greater orbitofrontal cortical volume had a positive relationship to this ability. Since crystallized cognitive abilities have a strong cultural and educational component and it should not be surprising that these GFAs are also related to parental education, race/ethnicity, and parental income (Suppl. Table 1). Thus, future investigations will need to further delineate the complex relationship between SMA, structural brain characteristics, and other moderating influences. Nevertheless, these results support the general conclusion that SMA associated brain characteristics are not uniformly related to better or poorer cognitive performance. Instead, specific components that affect particular brain areas contribute differentially to cognition.
Alexander Myers
I've seen similar research before. One study even concluded NO SCREEN TIME AT ALL.for the under 6s
Samuel Bell
I was a computer/video game addict growing up and I'm basically retarded now. Seems legit.
4.4 Conclusions This investigation of the ABCD cohort aimed at relating an important youth behavior, i.e. screen media activity, to structural characteristics of the brain and revealed that there are significant associations but that they are complex. Whereas some SMA associated brain structures have relevance for externalizing psychopathology, fluid and crystallized intelligence, others do not. Moreover, whereas some SMA associated brain structures are related to poorer cognitive performance, others are related to better cognitive performance. This diversity of findings provides an important public health message, i.e. screen media activity is not simply “bad for the brain” or “bad for brain related functioning”. Instead, future investigations will need to examine how various forms of screen media activity influence specific psychopathology and cognitive functions, and how this influences changes throughout development.
they dont know stuff, but they do know that stuff changes, thats about the extent of this research piece lel
Jack Ross
makes sense to me
most media presents information with the conclusions already present - viewers are told how to feel about something, or witness characters figuring out a problem from a passive viewpoint
there is very little engagement or problem solving, very little tactile feedback through touch or smell
the brain is receiving information without the body actually interacting with the physical world, so of course the layer that processes physical feedback atrophies
Robert Reyes
>X CHANGES THE BRAIN ZOMG!!!!111 I hate these sensational normie-tier bullshot popsci headlines. Everything you do changes the brain
Kevin Edwards
>let 9 yr old son use iPhone since he was 2 Well, that was a mistake. What made you think that was a good idea at the time?
Landon Howard
well if we knew how and why in which way it changes the brain, we could try to exploit it. If a person has a weakness of sorts, then you could try to exploit it.
Aiden Howard
You are absolutely retarded and should not be allowed to raise children.
Experiments and research shown that modern humans are able to process immense ammount of information, have far higher mental capacity than before and need constant stream of information to 'feed' their brain machine.
If there is insufficient information input, they litterally slow down and become dumber. Normal human functioning without using internet and tech or video/books simply cant provide sufficient amount needed for modern human intellegence.
Living "normal" life, or worse trying to live as medieval humans did where their world was their village big and they had zero information consumption in a few months turns intellegent swift thinking and able to proces insane masses of information person into dumb neanderthaler like peasant with slow thoughs and difficulties to concentrate.
Brain size to that is irrelevant. Majority of human and animal brain is responsible exclusively to maintain bodily functions, coordination and perception. Bigger brain absolutely does not men better brain and effects of tissue changes even if human brain would shrink (its already smaller than Neanderthaler's or apes) provides no correlation. More interestingly, new research shows NEW areas not present before being discovered in modern humans brain, responsible for new tasks.
tldr: if you want your kid to be guaranteed dumb, take away his phone and access to internet.
As for the rest, making him consume actually USEFUL information is your job
Matthew James
No, its content. Little fuckers consume such retarded stuff, that even traditional "bing-bing-wahoo" games in comparison seem like epitome of big brain entertainment. Modern mobile gaming is peak instant gratification, with it tied to spending most of the time. It trains kids to be the perfect consumer with zero impulse control or patience.
Xavier Myers
>Vaccines >Fluoride in the water Indeed look at all the ADHD and autistic gen x people. Ohwaityoufuckingmong.
Adrian Hall
We have a pretty good general idea of how things change the brain. Connections you use often get stronger, and connections you don't eventually weaken. Neurons that fire together, wire together. Or, to put it simply, you get better at something the more you do it (this corresponds to changes in the brain)
David Nguyen
>tfw you want to spread this but are holding off for a day so the SPLC funds terrorists video has maximum viewing potential first
Kind of obvious if you look at how the kids react when you take technology off them, it's not healthy, like drug addicts
plus being "bored" is necessary to grow up as a functioning person
Zachary Brooks
I notice a lot of mothers playing with their phone while having the baby on their lap. The baby is trying to interact with mommy by making eye-contact and reading facial expressions while she sit's there glaring into the screen like a good Faceberg Zombie. After some time the baby gives up on interacting with humans and becomes an autistic psycho.
Honestly I get the same effect of distorted reality whether I'm on a screen all day or reading a book all day. It's about immersion, not necessarily the tech.
Matthew Martin
Nah, kids these days are even visibly stupider than the previous generations. Tech is fucking humans up.
t. Old as fuck
Henry Garcia
looks like someone got a little too much screen time as a kid
Back in the 90's and earlier 2000's it was a fairly common understanding that if you're bored, then you're boring, and it was effective for curbing self-pity bs, but sometime after 2012 self-pity bs was encouraged and I bet now if anyone were to say this to a kid with people nearby there would be at least two of them that would say something about it somehow being child abuse. It's all so fucked.
Brody Mitchell
This has been known for years you moron. How could you let your 2yo child spend time in front of a screen when no child should spent time like this until at least 4yo, ideally 7. You fail as a parent.
Ian Robinson
>give your child infinite, high intensity stimulus >wonder why they can’t sit still in school and learn >end up dumb as shit It’s literal common sense and millions of parents still do it. At least my kid will have an army of half retarded tech slaves to work under him
Ethan Russell
True. Also, such parents tend to put their phone in the centre of their lives instead of the baby...
Angel Miller
I'm 25 and my mom knew when I was a kid that that shit was bad for the brain because of studies. Just because you happened to come across this for the first time now does not mean it is new information, you're just a shitty parent who didn't bother to do research before raising his kid.
Bentley Powell
It'll be the same as smoking in the future. People will be more health minded regarding these stupid things we look look at every 15 minutes.
Jonathan Butler
Kids these days don't explore the world anymore , they just sit back and consume. They will have no real personality, among with minimal conflicts to stregthen them I forsee one of the most bleakist futures for them and the rest of us
Jace Sullivan
desu lazy parents cannot be helped and exist to create an underclass. My brother is one such person. Currently when we go over his 2 year old is glued to an iPad. Didn't give a shit when I tried to push him in the direction of realising the iPad for a 1.5 year old boy is not good. Nearly 1.5 years later the kid is under-developed speech-wise and can quite happily sit watching something for 4 hours. Runs about the house playing with an iPad in his hand. I thought they'd have learnt something when half their friends' children have glasses on 24/7 that are like an inch thick.
Me and fiance have already made a pact that no child of ours is getting any electronic device until 10+++
These children's TV shows are creepy. I bet they've designed them around psychological impulses of children to make them so addicting, like lootboxes in videogames n all that immoral shit.
Isaac Sanders
That's why you should never own a smartphone nor the newest hard and software regarding your machine.
You should always delay progress as much as possible, or else you'll become part of that whole Yale thing.
I'm glad my brothers are not that dumb, but I tried to warn some friends about this kind of shit. How can they brag about their small babies knowing how to scroll over an album of photos? Truly the future underclass, lower than the imported Africans.
Asher Sanders
Uncle Ted was right about everything
Juan Phillips
My son is gifted and I don't have the energy or resources to not let him play video games.
Grayson Nguyen
having a high IQ is good for looking ahead
Colton Gomez
Fluoride affects the pineal gland, which releases melotonin in order to sleep in low light.
Jason Green
My son is 2, and I give him 1 or 2 30 minute sessions a day with the ipad. Thats it. I can already see him turning into a crackhead with it too.
Christopher Morris
I hope you are monitoring what they watch as well. There are some really fucked up youtube videos/cartoons aimed towards kids that are just plain fucked up and weird.
It is fucked. All I can do is in the future raise my own right
Nicholas Bell
Another thing is that appearently the brain goes into the alpha state when watching TV. This is the state which you achive shortly before and during sleep, and also stay in most of the time as a child. This state is for the organization of the previously intaken information and embedding it into your (sub)conciousness. This state allows you to take in more information easier at the cost of the critical thinking thus making you also more subjectable to manipulation through TV propaganda obviously the constant change of the brainstate influences the brain physically as well
That's nothing new. The SPLC funds terrorists since '08
Joshua Ward
Aye, good luck to you there m8. I can habeeb it. But the video is well done in it's explanation so, it has the potential to be informative even for braindead normies.
Benjamin Perry
>daily screen usage of more than seven hours >seven hours >seven Dude, please tell me you dont give your kids the iphone for seven fucking hours straight.
7 is rookie numbers. Advanced parents manage to only raise their childs for 4 full hours a day and let the rest get taken care off by tv, school, the streets or whatever else let the little ones shut up for a second
Jaxon Sanchez
There’s a very good chance that our children’s worlds will completely revolve around those stupid little touch screens. It’s pretty unlikely that our kids will be turning wrenches or doing much heavy lifting. Their careers will be much more involved with technology, and to limit their future skill-set just because you think they should “go outside” is pretty stupid.
Juan Bennett
why would you give your kid an ipad, are you made of money and retardation? He can play with some toy.
Joshua Bell
To elaborate on this with my personal experience: I was the youngest child of 5. My parents raised my older siblings much more strictly. Very limited time on the computer if any at all. My parents would constantly tell them to get off the games and go outside. My parents sort of gave up on those rules by the time I came around, and I was allowed to go on the computer as much as I wanted. Fast forward to now: I am the only one in the family who knows anything about computers. All of my siblings are like cringey boomers when they try to use anything with an petaling system. They barely understand their phones. All of my siblings work shit manual labor jobs where they work way to hard for way too little, while I make 20 dollars an hour basically doing nothing.
Don’t limit your child because you don’t understand the future.
Joseph Perez
So, let me see if I understand your post. You are saying that before cellphones there were no smart people.
Interesting. Can you explain why people under 30 today cannot do basic math if they can't count it on their fingers? I've met engineers that can't even do 6x7 without an iPhone calculator app.
William Lee
Lower your sensitivity so you have to move your whole arm instead of your wrist, although it might be too late now or you may just be genetically predisposed to carpal tunnel.
Owen Thompson
Just two hits of kiddie crack cocaine?
Ones little Johnny has a taste, it's already too late...
Noah Miller
>Well fuck me, I’ve let my 9 year old son use an iPhone since 2 and an iPad since 4, and he goes berserk if he’s told he can’t use technology. congratulations, your child knows nothing but technology, Im in the same boat although not to the mobile extent where they need it all the time 24/7, im more than fine staring at a wall as I could think about shit
Jeremiah Ortiz
You only see results when you hit 7+ hours. You can do 5-6 and see no statistically significant difference. It's not the screen time, it's the lack of parental interaction. Children with shitty parents are genetically shitty people.
Gabriel Long
you're a fucking idiot if you let your 2 year old child use a smartphone or a tablet and you deserve it if your offspring becomes degenerate
Luis Gray
>always do opposite of what government says.
Luis Reyes
fpbp
Xavier Murphy
1 post by this ID, sage all fields
Michael Rogers
I agree. Everyone on Jow Forums is being a literal boomer over this. I'm sorry the world is changing grandpa and its scary but get over it. Stupid kids that turn into stupid adults isn't a new phenomena and existed long before cell phones, computers, television, rock and roll, and whatever current year fad you want to attach your fears to next.
>brain cortex has to be stupid. this could be real but we live in the modern age where screen use means interacting with something, the previous generation had TVS, that means we should have a leg up.
Jaxon Evans
I deliver food all day in the burbs of St. Louis and Louisville, averaging 100 deliveries per week. It’s very rare that I have to slow down for children playing in the street. Less children these days and they’re all staying inside.
