Effects of screen time on children’s growth and development By: Ansa Rehman

Technology is an important part of our life but since children are consuming them these days like food which has adverse effects on them that are irreversible. These damages will influence them for the rest of their lives. While technology offers numerous educational and entertainment benefits, concerns have arisen about the potential impacts of excessive screen time on children’s physical, cognitive and emotional development.

Studies have shown that there is a direct link of daily screen use with more autism-like symptoms in early childhood. Excessive screen time also affects brain development and emotional stability. Study of kids ages 3 to 5 suggests that digital media use (screen time) impacts development of brain areas responsible for visual processing, empathy, attention, complex memory and early reading skills. Research By: John S. Hutton, MD, MS.

Lifestyle associated with excessive screen time can led to health issues like obesity and poor posture. It’s essential to balance digital activities with physical play to ensure overall health and development. Patricia Kuhl is one of the world’s leading brain scientists and runs experiments with more than four thousand babies each year. She states,” what we’ve discovered is that little babies, under a year old, do not learn from a machine.” She says pointing to several brain scans on a computer.” Even if you show them captivating videos, the difference in learning is extra ordinary. You get genius learning from a live human being, and you get zero learning from a machine.”
Social media and screen time do not teach our kids to control their impulses and how to cope with their frustration. Screens make them dependent for entertainment and they cannot rely on themselves or others. This leads to frustration and hinders imagination and motivation.
Screen time has been the main cause of obesity in children. Those who have more screen time are likely to suffer from obesity. Those who have higher screen time are 1.2 times more likely to be obese. Obesity is a major issue these days already and screen time is adding to it.
Experts recommend no more than an hour of a time per day for kids ages two to five limited, supervised screen time for toddlers and no screen time at all for babies under 18 months old.

Contributions: Abeera dildar, Fatima tuz Zahra, Ayesha Khan, 
Rimsha Kamran, Zainab Imran

(Writer is Student of Psychology Riphah University
and could be reached at
ansarehman18@gmail.com)