5 ms·

"Screen time use may have detrimental effects on children’s health and development [5–15]. Studies of young children report associations between screen time and

by comboy 5y ago

"Screen time use may have detrimental effects on children’s health and development [5–15]. Studies of young children report associations between screen time and cognitive development outcomes, such as short-term memory skills, academic achievement in reading and math, and language development [5, 11, 14]. High levels of screen time in early childhood also appear to negatively impact academic and social outcomes in the long-term [9]. Furthermore, while evidence for an association between screen time and BMI among preschool children was inconclusive [16], several studies have reported positive associations later in childhood [3, 6, 17, 18]. " from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1479-5868-10-102 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1479-5868-10-102 There is more research if one is willing to look. Obviously context matters and screen time of HN parent teaching kid how to code and explore is different than screen time of a child that is given an ipad and left alone. But You are probably familiar with how child brain develops. And screen provide tiny amount and much much less complex information than the real world no matter how complicated software you run. Interacting with 3d objects, reacting to micro expressions and complex emotions of people gives much richer environment for brain to find patterns in and learn. You can give 6 year old kid who never had screen access a computer and it will figure it out faster than you think it could. But if the same 6-10 year old never played any sports or had interactions with other children - that's going to take a while, possibly even never fully getting there. Of course balance is always the answer but it's worth noting that difference.

IanSanders 5y ago
100% agree on the balance. "Screen time use may have detrimental effects on children’s health and development" to me associates with having witnessed (too many times) parents hand their child a tablet with some simple game or a video in order to free themselves for a conversation or another activity, rather than a parent teaching their kid programming. I wonder whether it's not the 'screen' itself, but the type of activity normally accompanying it. (And the sacrificed of other required complex activities, like you mentioned) Just like it's really challenging to bring a second language to the level of the mother tongue, and even then one mostly dreams in the native language (citation needed), I wonder if learning programming from young age will open one to a more "fluent" understanding.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> And screen provide tiny amount and much much less complex information than the real world no matter how complicated software you run. That may be true in general, but I think what matters is that a screen provides much larger, richer and more complex information and experience than just about any other individual object in the physical world. Nothing in nature (with the possible exception of faces) comes within an order of magnitude to the "experience density" of a smartphone running even relatively trivial software like a picture gallery or a scrollable list of songs. I wouldn't discount the impact of this on a brain of a 1-3 y.o. It's a superstimulus.
- mmustapic 5y ago
  > That may be true in general, but I think what matters is that a screen provides much larger, richer and more complex information and experience than just about any other individual object in the physical world Children pay attention to very small details. When they are looking at a plant with a spiderweb, they are looking at individual leaves, how the web connects to the plant, the spider, its movement, anything in the web, the colors, how it reacts to the wind, not to mention the 3d-ness of it all. Then they touch things and see how they react, training their fingers, hands, arms and rest of the body to make the exact movement they want, coordinating it with what the eyes see and what the skin feels. A photo gallery in a smartphone is extremely dull in comparison, and that's why they can learn to use it immediately.
  - GrinningFool 5y ago
    > A photo gallery in a smartphone is extremely dull in comparison, and that's why they can learn to use it immediately. I think the reason they can learn to use it immediately is that it's super-simple to learn - tap and swipe, and not very many of those gestures at that. Phone interfaces now are designed to be used by /anyone/ - and that means keeping them simple enough that it can be learned quickly by a child.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    > Children pay attention to very small details. (...) They do. All your examples are correct, for the first few encounters. Then they bucket these things as "leaves", "spiderwebs", etc. and stop caring. Complex does not mean interesting (see also my parallel reply here: [0]). > A photo gallery in a smartphone is extremely dull in comparison No, it isn't. Not only the photos in the gallery are likely to be complex, with each showing a slice of the real world, they're also likely to be varied - each one may show a completely different situation, scene, context. And they're unpredictable, surprising. The one constant of the natural world is that what you see now is roughly the same as what you saw a second ago, or a minute ago. There's only so much of the world around you, it's persistent, and except in emergency situations, stable. Kids learn to tune it out very quickly[1]. Meanwhile, smartphones are those magic rectangles filled with varied, unpredictable, immediate reactions to input. > and that's why they can learn to use it immediately. Kids are smart and much more persistent than adults at figuring things out, meanwhile UX designers are assuming users are drooling idiots and designing interfaces that are more trivial than those on Fischer Price toys. It's a perfect storm, so no surprise little kids figure smartphones out very quickly. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29113029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29113029 [1] - Not being able to would be debilitating.
ekianjo 5y ago
> High levels of screen time in early childhood also appear to negatively impact academic and social outcomes in the long-term [9]. seems highly dubious when there is an entire economy that sprung out of people who were exposed to computers at an early age.
- lazypenguin 5y ago
  Why is it dubious? Dropping out of school and social awkwardness are not uncommon stereotypes among computer enthusiasts. Having these properties doesn’t necessarily correlate with negative economic outcomes…
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  I don't think it's controversial to suggest that the world of "computers" today doesn't look much like the 80s and 90s. Back then, the most child-friendly computing device one could hope to be exposed to was probably a speak-and-spell (or a fiendishly difficult NES cartridge). If the kids back then -- now tech workers -- wanted to mess around with a computer, it was more effortful to engage with and presented even greater challenge once one was actually comfortable with it. I had the advantage of a few family members already involved with computers, but I remember learning about colour depth with some ridiculous dinosaur game, about bootdisks so I could play Commander Keen, and how not to install X-Wing (don't ask). The act of using the computer was inextricable from learning about how it worked, and that knowledge could be immediately reemployed in more interesting use. I know a west-coast-style guy who works in a brewery and lives for Ultimate Frisbee, but he also understands scripting better than any non-tech person I know because in his youth he was seriously into Diablo 2 and its bot scene. Contrast this to the modern iPad. No edges to cut yourself on, no seams to pry up, no tacit understanding gained, and the big draw being the meta-TV of YouTube...
  - queuebert 5y ago
    And, importantly, none of those early experiences you had were psychologically engineered to manipulate you into spending as much time on the screen as possible.
scns 5y ago
This is only a correlation. My interpretation would be that those children are suffering from neglect and eat more junk food. - "Go watch TV" (don't bother me) - "There is pizza in the freezer" My guess would be, that their parents experienced the same lack of love in their childhood.
geomark 5y ago
There is more research if one is willing to look. There is [1] - a study where MRI was used to measure the myelination in young children's brains, comparing high screen time and low screen time kids. It was a small study and relied on self-reporting by parents, but there's a physically measurable affect. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/04/132071/screen-time-might-be-physically-changing-kids-brains/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/04/132071/screen-ti...
nsxwolf 5y ago
My kids have grown up with screens, amidst all the screen time fear porn, and seem to be doing fine. My oldest is 10, he does well in school and likes to read paper books and does karate and dabbles with sports. And plays a metric ton of video games. Maybe there will be all sorts of terrible long term effects that won’t manifest for years. But my kids are clearly doing much better than I did in every measurable way. I grew up a neurotic mess in a broken home. My examples of fatherhood were 80s sitcoms. I’m just making it all up as I go along. Not going to fret about screens until I see a problem.

by comboy 5y ago

IanSanders 5y ago

100% agree on the balance. "Screen time use may have detrimental effects on children’s health and development" to me associates with having witnessed (too many times) parents hand their child a tablet with some simple game or a video in order to free themselves for a conversation or another activity, rather than a parent teaching their kid programming. I wonder whether it's not the 'screen' itself, but the type of activity normally accompanying it. (And the sacrificed of other required complex activities, like you mentioned) Just like it's really challenging to bring a second language to the level of the mother tongue, and even then one mostly dreams in the native language (citation needed), I wonder if learning programming from young age will open one to a more "fluent" understanding.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> And screen provide tiny amount and much much less complex information than the real world no matter how complicated software you run. That may be true in general, but I think what matters is that a screen provides much larger, richer and more complex information and experience than just about any other individual object in the physical world. Nothing in nature (with the possible exception of faces) comes within an order of magnitude to the "experience density" of a smartphone running even relatively trivial software like a picture gallery or a scrollable list of songs. I wouldn't discount the impact of this on a brain of a 1-3 y.o. It's a superstimulus.

mmustapic 5y ago
> That may be true in general, but I think what matters is that a screen provides much larger, richer and more complex information and experience than just about any other individual object in the physical world Children pay attention to very small details. When they are looking at a plant with a spiderweb, they are looking at individual leaves, how the web connects to the plant, the spider, its movement, anything in the web, the colors, how it reacts to the wind, not to mention the 3d-ness of it all. Then they touch things and see how they react, training their fingers, hands, arms and rest of the body to make the exact movement they want, coordinating it with what the eyes see and what the skin feels. A photo gallery in a smartphone is extremely dull in comparison, and that's why they can learn to use it immediately.
- GrinningFool 5y ago
  > A photo gallery in a smartphone is extremely dull in comparison, and that's why they can learn to use it immediately. I think the reason they can learn to use it immediately is that it's super-simple to learn - tap and swipe, and not very many of those gestures at that. Phone interfaces now are designed to be used by /anyone/ - and that means keeping them simple enough that it can be learned quickly by a child.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > Children pay attention to very small details. (...) They do. All your examples are correct, for the first few encounters. Then they bucket these things as "leaves", "spiderwebs", etc. and stop caring. Complex does not mean interesting (see also my parallel reply here: [0]). > A photo gallery in a smartphone is extremely dull in comparison No, it isn't. Not only the photos in the gallery are likely to be complex, with each showing a slice of the real world, they're also likely to be varied - each one may show a completely different situation, scene, context. And they're unpredictable, surprising. The one constant of the natural world is that what you see now is roughly the same as what you saw a second ago, or a minute ago. There's only so much of the world around you, it's persistent, and except in emergency situations, stable. Kids learn to tune it out very quickly[1]. Meanwhile, smartphones are those magic rectangles filled with varied, unpredictable, immediate reactions to input. > and that's why they can learn to use it immediately. Kids are smart and much more persistent than adults at figuring things out, meanwhile UX designers are assuming users are drooling idiots and designing interfaces that are more trivial than those on Fischer Price toys. It's a perfect storm, so no surprise little kids figure smartphones out very quickly. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29113029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29113029 [1] - Not being able to would be debilitating.

ekianjo 5y ago

> High levels of screen time in early childhood also appear to negatively impact academic and social outcomes in the long-term [9]. seems highly dubious when there is an entire economy that sprung out of people who were exposed to computers at an early age.

lazypenguin 5y ago
Why is it dubious? Dropping out of school and social awkwardness are not uncommon stereotypes among computer enthusiasts. Having these properties doesn’t necessarily correlate with negative economic outcomes…
revolvingocelot 5y ago
I don't think it's controversial to suggest that the world of "computers" today doesn't look much like the 80s and 90s. Back then, the most child-friendly computing device one could hope to be exposed to was probably a speak-and-spell (or a fiendishly difficult NES cartridge). If the kids back then -- now tech workers -- wanted to mess around with a computer, it was more effortful to engage with and presented even greater challenge once one was actually comfortable with it. I had the advantage of a few family members already involved with computers, but I remember learning about colour depth with some ridiculous dinosaur game, about bootdisks so I could play Commander Keen, and how not to install X-Wing (don't ask). The act of using the computer was inextricable from learning about how it worked, and that knowledge could be immediately reemployed in more interesting use. I know a west-coast-style guy who works in a brewery and lives for Ultimate Frisbee, but he also understands scripting better than any non-tech person I know because in his youth he was seriously into Diablo 2 and its bot scene. Contrast this to the modern iPad. No edges to cut yourself on, no seams to pry up, no tacit understanding gained, and the big draw being the meta-TV of YouTube...
- queuebert 5y ago
  And, importantly, none of those early experiences you had were psychologically engineered to manipulate you into spending as much time on the screen as possible.

scns 5y ago

This is only a correlation. My interpretation would be that those children are suffering from neglect and eat more junk food. - "Go watch TV" (don't bother me) - "There is pizza in the freezer" My guess would be, that their parents experienced the same lack of love in their childhood.

geomark 5y ago

There is more research if one is willing to look. There is [1] - a study where MRI was used to measure the myelination in young children's brains, comparing high screen time and low screen time kids. It was a small study and relied on self-reporting by parents, but there's a physically measurable affect. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/04/132071/screen-time-might-be-physically-changing-kids-brains/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/11/04/132071/screen-ti...

nsxwolf 5y ago

My kids have grown up with screens, amidst all the screen time fear porn, and seem to be doing fine. My oldest is 10, he does well in school and likes to read paper books and does karate and dabbles with sports. And plays a metric ton of video games. Maybe there will be all sorts of terrible long term effects that won’t manifest for years. But my kids are clearly doing much better than I did in every measurable way. I grew up a neurotic mess in a broken home. My examples of fatherhood were 80s sitcoms. I’m just making it all up as I go along. Not going to fret about screens until I see a problem.