Is Screen Time Bad For Kids Brains discusses the effects of screen time on children, preteens, and even teenagers. Researchers address the question of “Do they cause attention deficits, mood problems, or delays in reading or problem‑solving ability?” instead of looking into addiction. While the article on “Kidfluencers” goes over the existence of “Kidfulencers” and the “Generation tagged”, two things not many people seem to know about. The generation tagged are kids who have grown up in the age of modern social media, not just being surrounded by technology but being involved in it since the day they are born. It speaks on how this can be emotionally damaging to these children and falls into borderline child labour, debating the child actor against the child youtube star.
(Carey , B. (2018, December 10). Is Screen Time Bad For Kids Brains? . New York Times.)
Is screen time bad for kids? It’s an age old question that you’d think we would know the answer to by now. Technology has been around for a long enough time that there’s been plenty of research done but do we truly know if screen time is “bad” or just different? First of all you have to consider the notion of the word “bad” and what we correlate with the term. In the article written by Benedict Carey delves into the study done by CBS’s “60 minutes” that reports heavy screen time being associated with lower scores on some aptitude tests and accelerated “cortical thinning”. Though the data in this study seems concerning it is explained in the NY Times article that it is preliminary and unclear as to whether the effects are lasting or even meaningful. This article also speaks on how screen addiction, or addiction in general, can affect a child’s brain and the way they process things at a young age (ages 2-12). Screen addiction can change a young child’s brain; and it will, but so does everything else that children engage in such as sports, school, reading, speaking, and any other everyday interaction. An adolescent brain is constantly changing in response to daily experiences, and this change will not stop until a person is in their early to mid twenties. The issue in research for this topic is we cannot discern whether or not the change screen time itself creates is more impactful than any of the “normal” stuff. As the article reports: “What scientists want to learn is whether screen time, at some threshold, causes any measurable differences in adolescent brain structure or function, and whether those differences are meaningful. Do they cause attention deficits, mood problems, or delays in reading or problem-solving ability?” In the end, it seems as though there have been very few studies that could confirm that screen time creates such brain differences. There have been over 100 scientific reports on the subject and not one has been able to pinpoint emotional or behavioral differences, which does seem kind of hard to believe. Results are very mixed, and sometimes very contradictory. With this kind of study I believe it’s important to remember and understand that though screen time for children has become a newer thing, it was something that was bound to happen and the human brain takes it in as if it is any other type of stimuli. The world nowadays is so potent with technology that it’s hard to keep children away from it, it’s just so fast paced that people just cannot keep up sometimes. This article could be seen as a bit of a relief that there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to the development of the average child’s brain but it also reminds us of how quickly children can become aware of technology. That’s what this website aims to answer though, how to keep our next generation safe without completely tearing them away from the thing that they’ve grown so accustomed to.
(Nottingham, E. (2019, July 12). We need to protect children who appear on social media: ‘generation tagged’ and the youtube kidfluencer. University of Winchester.)
Have you ever heard of the term “Kidfluencer”? It’s an odd word that has become a little more mainstream recently along with family vlogging and family youtube channels. In this article, Dr. Emma Nottingham outlines the Winchester Center for Information Rights research showing that children who appear on social media need greater protections. Now, to start off it’s important to learn the new terms we have here, including “Generation Tagged” and “Kidfluencer”. The Generation Tagged refers to the generation of children who have grown up in the age of social media and have normalized the tagging of others online. These children are the ones who have only known a world of social media, unlike the “Digital Natives” who grew up around technology but weren’t as affected by it. Secondly there’s the term ‘Kidfluencer” which refers to children who “run” youtube/tiktok/instagram accounts and keep up with their many fans. This is a style of family vlogging that focuses on the child of the family, whether they be doing toy reviews, getting coll surprises, or doing a podcast/video with a parent. In this article she states: “With millions of viewers watching each day, children who appear on YouTube frequently and consistently end up becoming mini celebrities in their own right. Their parents can also benefit from this celebrity status as their own social media following will likely increase. They can earn money through advertising and can be provided with free products to help boost sales.”, a generally worrying statement. Children of this age should not be used as a way to gain popularity and money online, though it could be convenient, especially now. She also speaks on the emotional harm this can cause these children, there are many ways a child can have their freedoms stripped away when they continue to put intimate information about themselves on the internet, even if it’s through their parents. Including child actors into the equation, youtube families are entirely unregulated whereas child actors have licenses and limits to the amount of hours they are able to work. With a “kidfluencer” it’s possible that they are on the clock for many more hours because they will be recorded whenever their parents want, most likely without their verbal consent on the matter. Though there is little research on this topic as of yet the University of Winchester has launched a new study which will see researchers interview older children who were involved in reality TV programmes at a young age and the parents/guardians of those children. This study is important in order to keep these children safe while still being able to continue doing what they would like to do. Hopefully this article brings light to a subject that not many people know about when it comes to children’s safety on the internet.
DAD! CUT THAT PART OUT! “Dad! Cut that part out” Little girl pleads with her Dad to cut out part of a video he was editing where she mentioned her crush. Something that he shouldn’t have fought her on whatsoever.
Content By Kiki Lapan
