The time spent in front of the screens changes the children’s brains causing a loss of cognitive ability. This is what emerges from a study published by Jama Pediatrics and conducted by researchers from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital who based themselves on brain resonances.
Hutton’s study involved 47 healthy children – 27 females and 20 males – between the ages of 3 and 5, and their parents. The children underwent a test to evaluate cognitive abilities, as well as a magnetic resonance imaging to the brain to establish the “integrity of the white matter”, that is, the part that guarantees the correct passage of information between the various areas. Parents were asked to fill in a questionnaire about the hours spent by their children in front of the screen and the content watched, which resulted in a score.
It thus emerged that high scores in the questionnaire are significantly associated with less expressive language, less ability to name objects quickly and lower writing skills. Furthermore, an increase in the score also resulted in a lower integrity of the white matter , in traits involving the functions of language and literacy.
The lead author of the study points out that there is no “safe minimum time”. “It is difficult to say what the minimum age or the most suitable time is – he explains -. My motto is ‘screen free’ up to the age of three , this at least causes children to come to kindergarten with a solid base in the real world. “
The one launched by the study is the latest of the alarms regarding the consequences of overexposure of children on the screens of phones, PCs and tablets. Some time ago the “mea culpa” of Sean Parker, one of the founders of Facebook, who said : “When a network grows to a billion or two billion people, it literally changes your relationship with society, with others . It probably interferes mysteriously with productivity in strange ways. Only God knows what he is doing to our children’s brains . “
On social media, he also said that social media, and Facebook above all, started with a question: “How do I consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible ?”. Thus “they exploited a vulnerability in human psychology”, that is, the need for social recognition.