I'm Tatevik Aprikyan in our
Chicago studios. This half hour we're looking into how
screens affect our brains so much of what we do every
day requires some type of electronic device and these
days even infants are looking at screens as they learn
about the world. We wanted to look into what all that
screen time does to the brain. Tyler Adkison did some
digging for us. It's typically the first thing you grab
when you wake up in. The last thing you use before
going to bed your smartphone, a device that
revolutionized our interactions placing a full fledged
computing device in our pockets. Research shows
Americans check their phones 96 times a day. That's
once every 10 minutes Combine that smartphone usage
with laptops and television. And in 2022, the average
us adult will spend more than eight hours a day staring
at a screen. That means the average us adult spends
more time watching a screen during the day than they
sleep every night according to vision direct. The
average person will spend the equivalent of 44 years of
their life staring at screens, Higher levels of
exposure to digital technology has created a set of
symptoms called digitalized string. Nearly 60% of
Americans experienced some symptoms of digitalized
stream. The blue light emitted from computers,
smartphones, tablets, televisio and other electronic
devices has led to health concerns of blue light
exposure to eye tissues because blue light has a short
wavelength, it produces a high amount of energy
according to U.A.B. Medicine. Too much blue light
exposure could damage some sensitive cells in the
retina and can lead to focusing problems and eyestr
But no research has conclusively shown blue light
causes long term harm i disease or retina damage. Still
that doesn't mean hours of screen time is healthy.
Digital eye strain can put extra burden on my focus
muscles and can lead to dry eyes. For Children. It's
even worse since the pandemic Children have been
spending almost triple the recommended amount of screen
time. Research shows that on average Children had
nearly six hours of screen time a day, some even longer
at a staggering 13 hours a day. Screen time was even
higher for Children of color and lower income families
than white, wealthier kids. A Jama pediatrics study
shows for teenagers screen time outside of virtual
school doubled from pre pandemic levels from nearly 3.8
hours per day to 7.7 hours each day. That's because
kids are more exposed to digital electronics at an
earlier age, Nearly half of all Children eight and
under have their own tablet device and spend an average
of about 2.25 hours a day on digital screens. Researc
shows Children who spent more than two hours a day on
screen time. Activities scored lower on language and
thinking tests and some Children with more than seven
hours a day of screen time experience thinning of the
brain's cortex an area of the brain related to critical
thinking and reasoning it's also impacting their sleep,
which is crucial for little ones as a good night's
sleep is essential for brain development. The blue
light from screens and Hibbitts Melatonin which can
delay sleep watching tv or playing games, also keeps
kids bodies and brains more alert and less ready for
sleep for teens who stay out late texting. Not only are
th getting enough rest for their eyes, they are
getting less rem sleep, which is needed for processing
and storing information from that day into memory. And
with that, thanks for spending a few minutes of
springtime with us. Let's bring in Dr Michael Rich,
he's a pediatrician at boston Children's Hospital and
also the founder and director of the Digital Wellnes
Lab. It's the first medical program that focuses on all
social and mental health issues related to technology.
Thanks for coming on the white tonight. Let's start
he basics when you're in front of a screen,
especially for hours at a time, what is happening to
our brain. Um Well I think that first of all we should
take a step back and get stop worrying so much about
the screen itself as to what we are doing with the
screen and what we are not doing because we're on a
screen. The reality is is that we're moving into a
world now that is more and more screen dependent for
education, for work, for communication for social life.
Um And so what we need to do is be more mindful in our
use of these screens and more balanced in how much we
use the screens and how much we have off screen time.
Um We've spent a lot of time sort of obsessing and
worrying about increased screen time, which is really
something that is an artifact held over from the days
when television was the only screen we had and it was
used only for entertainment. No we have to be more
thoughtful and directed in our use of screens and also
more thoughtful and directed in our turning off of
screens rather than using them as a default behavior.
So let me ask you this, like I'll use myself as an
example here if I'm sitting in front of a screen for
hours at a time for my job very close. I start getting
headaches. Is that typical Like what are some of those
impacts that we're seeing on the brain physically by
being in front of a screen like that Um Well it takes a
lot of cognitive resources actually to translate this
two dimensional pattern of light, darkness and color,
which is what a scs into an analog of the real
world. And so one of the things that's happening is
you're tiring your cognitive circuits, your visual
circuits are tiring to a certain degree. And one of the
things you can do is literally just take a break, lo
off into the distance, help your eyes reset, take a
walk. Um I think also just sitting still causes
headaches and causes, you know, physical fatigue and so
it's really about again balancing what we're doing on
screen and understanding that we should be doing other
things as well too. Refresh our body and mind. So kids
these days, even toddlers and infants have toys now
where they're learning numbers and letters, it's all on
a screen, There's games on ipads that are educational.
But look, we had flash cards growing up, it's now all
on a screen. What impact does that have on the
developing brain Well, I think there's some interesting
positives and negatives of it. First of all. Um I do
think that um again a screen takes more translation
than a book. A book actually is something that is
usually more often shared um in the sense of your
sitting in mama's lap and and reading the book with her,
whereas mom is maybe more likely to hand you that ipad
and and have you, you know, run with it yourself
because it will speak to you. It will do all the things
that she imagines she's doing. But the reality is that
laps are better than apps and it's a way to connect in
a whole lot of different ways than just learni
letters and numbers. Are there screens that are better
than others We hear a lot about the kinds of light that
are used on the screens. Are there some that you would
consider healthier um when it comes to certain things
Um the reality is these screens emit a very blue light
and early morning light and we as diurnal animals
interpret that as alert, get to work, you know, go out
and and live your day and then at the end of the day
when the sun goes down, when we're under incandes
lighting and it's darker, um we get more drowsy because
our body is secreting melatonin. What that blue light
does is it suppresses melatonin secretion. And so one
of the things that is problematic is watching a scree
or looking at a screen even to read right up until the
moment when we need to go to sleep and it gets delayed
for that reason. What have you noticed about how screen
time affects social skills, especially for kids and
teenagers Um a number of ways, First of all that we
believe, particularly when we have some social anxiety
or shyness or you know, awkwardness, um we believe that
it's a safer place to interact with people that it's
place where you're not going to be feel as awkward to
feel as embarrassed, etcetera. and yet we expect to
get the same kind of deep and meaningful connecti
that we get from real life connections. But so in som
ways we are using these screens not to connect so much
as to protect us from that awkwardness um etcetera. T
second thing is often a lot of social media is
asynchronous. Um and so you put something out there and
you don't get an immediate response the way you do when
you have a conversation with someone um where you get
to see, oh my I said something that I thought was a
joke but it hurts their feelings and you can respond in
real time. Um and so oftentimes things will get
misinterpreted and spiral out o control in a way with
that. Um Not to mention the whole effect of, you know,
people feeling um sort of invulnerable in this online
sort of anonymous space and so they tend to be edgier
meaner um and you know, try to push things harder um as
well as they expect to get the kind of love back. So if
they show a picture of themselves with their new outfi
and they get negative response to it or worse yet no
response to it. Um and worst of all get ghosted um they
will, you know, really take that personally. Whereas i
really would not happen in a physical interaction with
someone. The pandemic really ma us all spend a lot
more time in front of a screen from zoom meetings to
virtual school. Jama pediatrics did a study that showed
screen time outside of virtual school doubled from pre
pandemic levels from nearly 3.8 hours a day to 7.7
hours each day. I mean that's just extraordinary.
that healthy. Um Well no, I mean it's not healthy
simply that, you know, when you're in school for six
hours and you're in front of a screen for another 7.7
hours, that is more than half of your 24 hour day
sitting still in front of a screen. So it's not good
for you physically, it's not good for your eyes and for
a whole lot of reasons, it's not good for you
psychologically and emotionally Now the flip side
of that of course is that Um school, um at least in the
full school year, that was remote schooling, let's
discount the spring of 2020 did a relatively good job
in most cases of didactic teaching of math, of english
of science. What they didn't address at all effective
is the social emotional learnin that goes on in school,
which is so essential. What happens in the lunch room
in the playground, in the hallways where kids are
learning to create their own society, where they're
learning to get along and communicate and negotiate.
and so what happened is that, that occurred kind of
freestyle in places like roadblocks and Minecraft and
Fortnite even. And when I talk to kids about these
games, they don't talk about the game, they don't talk
about winning and losing, losing, they talk about
hanging out with their frien and so this became the
equivalent of recess of going to the park and kicking a
soccer ball around. I'm really curious to get your
perspective on the mental health aspects, especial
for teenagers who spend so much of their lives on these
social platforms. What do we need to understand as
parents and to protect our kids in a world they're
growing up in that we didn't absolutely, this is this
is so essential. And I think the first thing that we'v
got to understand is um we're getting nowhere by saying
you know, pointing fingers and saying instagram is
killing our kids or whatever. We have to understand
that this is a reality of their world, not only that,
but for them this is not virtual reality as opposed
physical reality, it's not online versus online offline
life. Um they move seamlessly between the digital
and the physical space. So for them it's one
environment. Um I think the second thing is that we
have made the mistake, I think of kind of ignoring what
they're doing online in the sense that oh there's so
much better at it, there's so much more facile with it
that they're in control there, okay At least they're
not having sex and selling drugs. Um and instead we
should be with them, we should be treating these power
tools as power tools. Um And just as we don't toss our
car keys to a four year old and say have at it, but
wait till they're 16 and we sit white knuckled in the
front seat while they learn to drive. We need to help
them learn to drive these tools in ways that are
responsible, respectful of themselves and others and
actually not to even use them until they have a
demonstrated need for them as well as your confidence
that they can start to learn to use them in these
respectful and responsible ways. That's important
insight. Dr Michael Rich, thank you so much for your
time tonight. Thank you. After the break we'll examine