Why Do We Discourage Screen Time For Children?
Screens have become an everyday part of our lives. As adults, we’re constantly switching from using our smartphones to computers and watching TV. Children have also picked up this behaviour, and according to data shared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), children between the ages of eight and ten spend six hours on average per day in front of a screen. The screen time for children between four and 14 has increased to an alarming nine hours a day.
The power of technology to keep us all connected is so important in today’s world. It provides access to education and entertainment while also allowing us to talk with our friends and family at distance. Although there are many great things our digital devices can help us with, too much screen time can negatively affect our health. It is imperative to create a healthy balance between time spent using digital devices and screen-free activities which can be difficult for even adults to do, nevertheless children and teens.
Today, the majority of American children spend five to eight hours per day in front of a screen and less than one hour per day outside. This unfavourably affects their sleep quality, attention span, and stress levels. Some parents look to put screen-time limitations on devices, but even at school kids have to use technology to complete assignments. For this reason, it’s important to combat the adverse effects of screen time by balancing it with screen-free activities outside of the classroom and at home.
Children are particularly vulnerable to sleep problems stemming from electronic devices that emit blue light. Numerous studies have established a link between using devices with screens before bed and increases in sleep latency, or the amount of time it takes someone to fall asleep. Additionally, children who use these devices at night often do not receive enough high-quality sleep and are more likely to feel tired the next day.
Too much screen time can have devastating effects on your child’s development. Read on to understand the risks excessive screen time poses for your children and why we discourage it:
Screens are Addictive: Whether your child is playing games, using social media, or doing anything involving a screen, they feel instant gratification. With each touch and gesture on the screen, they get an immediate response. Children old enough to use social media become used to the “like” button, which is a trigger that releases the brain’s pleasure chemical: dopamine. It can become addictive for children.
Screens Can Affect their Sleep Quality: Not all blue light is harmful. In fact, it is an important part of regulating our sleep cycle. The sun exposes you to a lot more blue light than our screens, which helps our body retain a good sleep cycle. When your children, or even yourself, are exposed to too much screen time in the evenings and night, the blue light emitted from your screens can offset the sleep cycle. This leads to a wide range of problems, including restless sleep or lack of sleep, daytime tiredness, and poorer academic performance and interest.
Screen Time Can Also Affect their Mental Health: Children spend so much time on digital devices, especially as they grow older. Therefore, they are likelier to be diagnosed with anxiety and depression than those with reduced screen time, according to a study published in the Preventative Medicine Reports. Children who spend too much time-consuming media may also experience mental development issues.
Children between 4 to 14 have become quite proficient with their use of smartphones, tablets, and other screen-based devices. Children this age now rely on these devices too much as a source of entertainment, and at the same time, gain too much exposure to a lot of different information. When they become so used to the devices and everything that they offer, children become bored very rapidly and start taking little interest in everything else.
When children no longer have anything to excite them, they can fall into depression. Sometimes, children exposed to too much screen time can become very aggressive and angry, they become bored very rapidly, especially those who consume a lot
of social media at an early age. With children using screen-based devices for so many things already, moving their education to the screen can become a danger for their future because it can impact their mental health.
Too much screen time has also been associated with significant health-related issues. Children usually assume a bad pose when using devices and tend to slump. Slumping too much at such a young age can lead them to develop a bone spur on their neck that bulges out.
You Can Reduce Your Child’s Screen Time While Studying: It seems that most learning in this day and age has also become digitized, and that is a significant reason that children today are exposed to too much screen time. Math is a subject that particularly requires a lot of time and close attention of many children, and too much screen time stands in the way of them getting better at math.
Fortunately, you can reduce your children’s screen time by reintroducing math learning the way it’s supposed to be done: through fun, engaging, and exciting worksheets that you can print out for them to solve.
Doamago offers a wide range of fun and exciting math exercises that can help you reduce your children’s screen time while studying math and actually enjoying it. Contact us to learn more about how we can help.
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