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| Guest Blog by Jenifer Joy Madden |
"Ban Russian Bots." The words shone brightly
projected across Twitter headquarters. Not long after, a listener of
NPR's 1a wrote: "Wish there was a national movement, like a Quit Facebook day. If they lost a million plus U.S. users in 1 day, it would give reformers inside the company the momentum they need." Then came the medical community. At a
research summit on how technology affects kids, a health policy expert issued a call to action: "Urge companies to first Do No Harm."
It's happening. People are finally realizing technology doesn't always operate in our best interests and they're doing something about it.
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Children, Adolescents and Screens: What We Know and What We Need to Learn
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Media Multitasking results in decreased memory, increased impulsivity, decreased neural structure, and decreased academic outcomes. Recommendations for clinicians and educators are to give careful consideration for how youth engage with media.
Social Media in youth is associated with cyberbullying, depression, social anxiety, sleep deprivation, low self-esteem, and exposure to developmentally inappropriate content. Authors recommend mandatory digital literacy for grades K-12.
Digital Media in children is associated with fear, trauma, social anxiety, depression, negative image, poor life satisfaction, poor emotion regulation, and decreased social interaction. Recommendations include education for parents and children, and encouragement to explore alternate activites to entertainment media.
Internet Gaming Disorder is documented in 9% of children ages 8-18 years identified by 5 or more of 9 criteria including
preoccupation with games;
withdrawal symptoms;
tolerance; unsuccessful attempts to control or reduce gaming;
loss of interest in relationships and alternate activites;
continued use of games despite obvious problems;
deception of others regarding gaming;
escape as primary reason for use; and
loss of significant relationship, job, or educational opportunity.
Recommendations for schools are as follows:
- Routine education about IGD and expand the infrastructure already in place for other potentially problematic behaviors (drugs, alcohol, risky sex, gambling) to include media overuse;
- Because of the consistent link between IGD and poor school performance, schools may be an excellent place for screening for IGD and for providing referrals for services;
- Due to prevalence of IGD, discontinue "gamifying" educational processes.
Sleep Deprivation
from digital media results in obesity, decreased cognitive functioning, and impaired mental health. 73% of Canadian children are sleep deprived. 75% of children are allowed devices in their bedrooms, and 60% use devices prior to going to bed. Recommendations include prohibiting all devices from child and youth bedrooms.
Digital Screen Devices
including television has an impact on cognitive development. For children under 2 years old, television has mostly negative associations, especially for language and executive function. Recommendations include limiting television exposure (especially background television) before the age of 2 years.
Youth Well Being
can be affected by heavy media use including diminished life satisfaction, internalizing negative experiences, depression, anxiety, attention problems and stress. Recommendations include parents learning about the social media sites their children are using and creating a digital curfew to increase health and well being.
Virtual Reality (VR)
availability has raised concerns of increased sedentary lifestyle, cyber addiction, violence, social isolation, desensitization and safety. VRs may not be appropriate for all children. Recommendations include the ongoing research into potential negative effects (e.g. dizziness, sickness, displacement) when designing wearable technologies marketed for children.
Obesity
in children is on the increase, related directly to screen media exposure. Reducing screen time along with changes in diet and increasing physical activity, can reduce obesity and result in less BMI gain in children. Recommendations include not consuming meals in front of a screen and ensuring children receive adequate sleep.
Substance Abuse and Problematic Gambling
by adolescents are increased by exposure to favorable presentations of harmful substances on social media, as well as increased opportunities for engaging in behaviours that can lead to addiction, such as online gambling. Recommendations include using online resources to reach and assist adolescents and parents to avoid progression of these behaviors.
Small Screen Use
is affecting driving safety, the inability of the driver to ignore them is the main cause. Recommendations include policy makers writing teen-aged driver laws that discourage the use of sources of digital distraction in the vehicle.
Parents Media Use
can influence children's media use, their attitudes regarding media, and the effects of media on their children e.g. families with media centric parents, results in young children having more daily screen time and are more likely to have a television in their bedroom. Recommendations include families using media to connect, co-view and create, choosing high quality content. Parents should use mediation strategies to reduce screen time.
Children's Privacy
may be affected by the Internet of Things, creating digital dossiers of information that could follow young people into adulthood, affecting access to education, employment, healthcare and financial services. Recommendations include policy makers expanding children's privacy safeguards to encompass data collection and marketing practices across digital platforms, including toys and other objects that are part of the Internet of Things.
Digital and Media Literacy
is essential to participate in society. Learning happens anywhere, anytime, and productivity in the workplace depends on digital and media literacy. Recommendations include developing tests that assess real-world literacy skills to ensure that youth become digitally and media literate.
Youth Civic Engagement
using digital media participation, often referred to as participatory politics, is a positive way for youth to be involved in shaping the world they are growing up in. But it is not without risk as these tools may be used for exploitation by political extremists and the online information is not always accurate, messages can be misconstrued or have unanticipated consequences. Recommendations include teaching adolescents how to manage rather than avoid risks inherent to life online.
Screen Violence
has short and long term harmful effects including increased aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiologic arousal, hostile appraisals, aggressive behaviour, desensitization to violence and decreased prosocial behaviour and empathy. Recommendations include a healthy media diet and parents to watch, play and listen to the media youth are consuming, preferably at the same time as their children.
Digital Inequality
can be found in the US as
more than half of all children are growing up in low-income families, where they are more likely to face social challenges, including constrained access to the internet and devices, rising to more disparities between them and their more privileged counterparts. Recommendations include providers not assuming there is a consistent access to online resources and the recognition that in many cases it is the children guiding the parents on how to access advice and services online, when it is available.
Children's Digital Opportunities
especially for information and education has great benefit around the world. Current research reveals an insufficient evidence base to guide policy and practice across all continents of the world, especially in middle- and low-income countries. Recommendations include further cross-cultural research and to share best practices internationally so that children can navigate the balance between risks and opportunities.
Defining Cyberbullying
- the 3 characteristics of traditional bullying - intent, repetition and power imbalance are not always present in digital behaviours. To make significant progress in addressing cyberbullying, certain key research questions need to be addressed. Recommendations include asking patients about their online behaviour and encouraging parents to talk to children about their digital activities.
Advertising
exposure of children and adolescents online can have both short - and long-term negative consequences. Recommendations include encouraging parents to monitor their children's exposure to marketing communication and educators to increase children's advertising knowledge.
Social Group Stories
help young people identify their gender and race among other important human categories. These messages can have negative and positive effect on children and adolescent's thoughts and behaviours. Recommendations include talking to children and teens about how the stories they see tell them who they are and help them to understand where the stories came from and what their own role is in determining their destiny.
Sexual Media
exposure online is different to exposure in traditional media, i.e. it is available 24/7 and is harder for parents to monitor. Social media use, sexting and online porn can all influence adolescents to engage in risky behaviours. Recommendations include providing tools to help parents recognize problematic sexual content, empower them to limit their children's exposure to and creation of such content, and help them discuss its potential influence with their children.
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Cris in the News
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How digital devices affect the development of children
Cris Rowan, Zone'in on Global News, discussing how digital devices affect the development of children.
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Foundation Series Workshop Schedule
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May 8, 2018 Winnipeg, Manitoba
Professional workshop on impact of technology on children sponsored by Healthy Baby Program, Healthy Child
Other Workshops
Families Managing Media 2017
The Screen Solution Workshops will leave you feeling equipped with the tools needed to help you reset your child's screen habits. From video games to smartphones, we'll show you how to make practical changes in your day-to-day life with proven strategies and replacement activities to establish a balanced screen use at different ages.
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| Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens |
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By Lisa Guernsey and Michael H. Levine
Reviewed by Kathy Kleckner, a public librarian serving children in Minnesota.
Children's reading is reduced to little more than a pipeline for profits in a new book from Lisa Guernsey and Michael H. Levine, employees of think tanks funded by technology corporations and devoted to children as consumers of technology.
At the outset, the authors admit that their book, Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens is not about how children learn to read or how to teach children to read. Indeed. Their book is about promoting a new definition of literacy, an "uberliteracy," that diminishes the importance of literature (the book), marginalizes the mutually reinforcing relationship between
reading and the adult-child bond and abandons the goal of fostering a love of reading - all in exchange for increased dependency on technology use.
Order the book at Amazon
here.
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| Research and News Review |
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Childhood Development
By Marie Bray October 30, 2017
Too much time in front of the screen and not enough time for other activities such as reading, physically playing games, and imaginative play will result in your children having their brains wired differently to make them less prepared to thrive in our current world.
Website and Newsletter
The Children's Screen Time Action Network is a coalition of practitioners, educators, and advocates working to promote a healthy childhood by reducing the amount of time kids spend with digital devices.
By Kira A Regan The University of Western Ontario April 27, 2017
Graduate research
providing an understanding about how youth experiencing marginalization are using social media, and how programming can be developed to suit their specific mental health needs and concerns.
By Simply Living FYS November 17, 2017
Minimizing time spent watching screens creates a much more fulfilling lifestyle because it involves fewer distractions. Technology is changing the way we function, not only socially, but mentally.
By Anita Lehmann
October 30,
2017
Do you ever struggle with getting your kids off the screen? Does it often end in tears (both theirs and yours)? This could help.
By Michaeleen Doucleff, Alilison Aubrey October 30, 2017
Parents should think of these devices in a similar way as tablets: Time on them should be limited. Click here for audio file.
Video Games & Pornography
Does your kid freak out when screen time is up? Intense reactions to turning off video games are becoming too common. Read some tips about making video game play go smoother in your homes.
By Bob Livingstone November 9, 2017
Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes, Columbine killer Eric Harris, Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza and almost every other mass murdering young killers - if not every one of them - were on some type of psychotropic drugs when they committed their crimes.
By Virginia Smart, Tyana Grundig, CBC News November 3, 2017
The average Canadian teenager is on track to spend nearly a decade of their life staring at a smartphone, and that's no accident, according to an industry insider who shared time-sucking secrets of the app design trade.
By Katie Singer October 22, 2017
Introductory-level resources for concerned citizens who want to get informed.
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Zone'in Programs
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Sedentary, neglected, isolated, and overstimulated, the new millennium child can no longer pay attention and learn. Zone'in Programs are designed by an occupational therapist to enhance child development and learning, ensuring successful futures.
Zone'in
- enhancing attention, learning and self-regulation.
Move'in
- teaches children to print, the foundation for literacy.
Unplug'in
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builds skill and confidence in activities other than technology.
Live'in
- media literacy guide for home, school and community.
Virtual Child - The terrifying truth about what technology is doing to children
By Cris Rowan, pediatric occupational therapist.
Virtual Child
documents the impact technology has had on the developing child, and proposes tools and techniques to manage balance between activities children need for growth and success with technology use.
BUY NOW ON Amazon.com
About the Author
Cris Rowan is a pediatric occupational therapist committed to enhancing child health and academic performance. Well known activist, speaker, sensory specialist and author, Cris is the "Go To" expert on child learning, development and technology overuse. Cris has provided over 200 workshops for health and education professionals, and is currently developing the Creating Sustainable Futures Program for a First Nations Community.
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Training & Consultation
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Instructor training for Foundation Series Workshops places pediatric occupational therapists on the cutting edge as experts in the field of technology's impact on child development.
Zone'in Training
Consultation
Innovative team-based approach to manage balance between activities children need to grow and succeed with technology use.
Cris Rowan is now offering private phone/Skype consultations.
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Care to Donate?
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Zone'in Programs Inc. and Cris Rowan are seeking your support and assistance to ensure sustainable and productive futures for our children. Find out more about how you can help us!
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Contact Us
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6840 Seaview Rd. Sechelt BC V0N3A4
Tel: 1-888-896-6346
Fax: 1-877-896-6346
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© Zone'in Programs Inc. 2017
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