The Dangers of Screen Time at Any Age

Neuroimaging examination demonstrate that extreme screen time damages the brain. Internet obsession is linked with basic and functional changes in brain areas involving emotional processing, decision-making, attention, and cognitive control. But what about the children who aren’t addicted for example? Addiction is a huge section, of a much bigger issue that implores the serious issues of too much screen time which is harming our youth with what most consider “regular” exposure. A typical adolescent will watch approximately seven hours of screen time daily. Countless children suffer from sensory surplus, not sleeping enough, and a hyper stimulated nervous system, regardless of analysis- what is defined as electronic screen syndrome. These children are imprudent, moody, and can’t pay attention- much like the description in the citation above telling damage seen in examinations.

Although majority of parents always indicate that they would like their child to watch less screens, majority of the time some will question if there is sufficient evidence to validate devices, they rationalize that it is part of our adolescent culture today, maybe they care that others like a spouse will demoralize their efforts. Multiple revisions have shown that decrease in tissue size in gray material in the brain where the processing happens with strong amounts of screen time. Areas hindered by this would contains the vital frontal lobe, which controls executive functions, such as forecasting, arranging and putting first things first, organizing their daily basics, and impulse control. Volume decrease was similarly viewed in the striatum, which is tangled in reward road ways and the destruction of socially undesirable compulsions. Research found specific issue was the injuries to the location known as the insula, which is tangled in our ability to advance in compassion and empathy for others and our capability to participate in physical gestures with feeling. Apart from the noticeable connection to violent conduct, these skills order the quality and depth of intimate relationships.

Exploration has similarly verified the decrease in the integrity to the brain’s white material. Spotty white materials turns into injury of messages within the brain matter, as well as networks to and from numerous lobes of the similar hemisphere, connections with the left and right hemispheres, and pathways among cognitive and emotional and survival brain hubs. White brain material similarly attaches systems from the body to the brain and vice versa. Broken up networks might decrease the speed of the signal, similar to a short-circuit, or have them turn irregular.

Imaging research has seen a decreased amount of individuals have the capability to processes information and decreased urge inhibition, amplifying the sensitivity to rewards and inconsiderateness to loss, and irregular spontaneous brain function connected with meager task ability. Study on video games have exposed that dopamine is released during gaming session and that urge or craving for specific games will allow the brain to alter, which is much like that of a drug craving. Other research indicates that internet obsession contains a decreased quantity of dopamine transporters and receptors. In short, excessive screen time appears to damage brain function and structure. Majority of the brain injuries happen in the brain’s frontal lobe, which experiences enormous alteration from adolescents to mid-twenties. Frontal lobe growth, mainly regulates accomplishment of every part of your life, from sense of overall happiness, to school or job advancement, and relationship capabilities.

A 2014 report found that adults log a total of 11 hours of screen time a day. Some of the known symptoms are computer vision syndrome, it can cause us to have our eyes extremely dry and start to have blurred vison, this can lead us to have nuisances. This can lead us to also not just have visual problems but pain on our neck or shoulders. To my experience I think, a lot of time on a screen either watching tv or video gaming could potentially affect our overall health. I am a very good example of this, when I was just 20 years old my addiction for computers and video gaming increased extremely. This affected me in way that I mentioned before, for instance, it made drop out of college because I was only seeking to play with my friends and it made me feel good. I did not seek for any career or goals with my life in the last 5 years, now that doing something and seeking opportunities seems like I never really did anything, and I was just stuck in time. It also led me to gain a lot of weight and that’s something that just made me depressed over the course of time and did not made me happy at all. Its also known that one of the most common and dangerous problems of screen time can be loss of social skills. People, especially the teenagers who most likely always hide from awkward situations and feel like the only way out is to be playing a game and forget about the world, end up having the most problems to interact with adults. By not developing any kind of kind of skills of interacting with others, it will affect them later on in life, whether they have a job that requires a lot of interaction, or just finding romance or friendships will become a big challenge to come across. Although some video games and watching news on the TV can also bring some positives effects like, knowing what is happing around their community while watching the news, and it is true that kids in certain video games can improve their visual attention and processing speed as well as mental rotation. But to much exposure of these games can weaken your working memory and make it hard to remember most of the things that you go through in life, and in the end can to think your living a fantasy and actually make decision that someone in a movie, game or anime would do rather than make a choice based on your reality or situation. The last growing area that I am going to mentions is the EMF exposure. For example, when gaming most of the children and part of the adult population hold a headset or a phone close to their ears. And this electromagnetics can make big damage on growing children since they develop their brain a lot more than an adult since the moment they are born until their reach the age of 25 or so.

In conclusion, I want to encourage everyone to check upon them selves and think of how much time we actually spend using electronics. Society now days has made so you can take classes online in college, apply for jobs and make resumes. Whether these methods are convenient to use or not, we have got to learn that what we do on our daily basics can definitely harm us for the rest of our lives without any possibilities of going back to make up for the time wasted.