Your child doesn’t need a smartphone. This is the number one questions parents ask me, and to do it justice, I’ve broken the conversation into bite size pieces.

This post is part two of a series; if you missed the first article on the negative impact of a smartphone on focus and sleep, I’d encourage you to read it first.

Today, we’re going to look at how smartphone use impacts mental health and overstimulation in young brains.

Smartphones make Drool Tech too accessible

Teens average 8+ hours/day on entertainment tech (Common Sense Media, 2019). This time does not include school, zoom meetings, or projects. It is just the time they spend consuming content on tech we call Drool Tech which is primarily: social media, games, shows, and music. 

 Extended time with Drool Tech can:

• Impair attention (Mendoza, Pody, Lee, 2018).
• Reduce test scores (Beland, Murphy, 2015). 
• Potentially raise the risk of depression (Twenge et al, 2017).

Drool Tech negatively impacts hope

In fact, starting at two hours online a day, a child’s risk of depression goes up 21% and at five hours a day of entertainment tech, the likelihood of depression raises 66% (NPR, 2017). In an era where mental health is one of the largest crises facing our nation, it would be foolish to equip undeveloped brains with resources designed to be habit forming and known to be a “causal risk factor for poor mental health” (CDC, 2017), (Liu and Liecthy, 2014). 

The numbers of self-harm and suicidal ideations for the teenage demographic are horrifying. Jonathan Haidt of NYU’s Stern School of Business sheds some light on it: “The number of teenage girls, out of 100,000, who were admitted to a hospital every year because they cut themselves or otherwise harm themselves, was pretty stable until around 2010-2011, and then it begins going way up. It’s up 62% in older teen girls, it’s up 189% for the pre-teen girl. That’s nearly triple.” This pattern continues with suicides. “Older teen girls are up 70%. Preteen girls, who have very low rates to begin with, are up 151%” (“The Social Dilemma”, 40:41, 40:50).

Drool Tech develops unhealthy habits

However, it’s not just the risk of depression that should put us at pause for handing our child a smartphone. The brains of individuals who struggle from compulsive computer use, known as Internet Addiction Disease (IAD), mimic the brains of opioid users in that they both show lower structural integrity in the white matter connecting to the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for inhibiting behavior (Fuchun, Hao, 2015). 

Tristan Harris, co-founder of The Center for Humane Tech and producer of documentary The Social Dilemma, notes that the emotional health of our daily tech extends into the most human experiences and relationships we have. “We are training, conditioning, a whole generation of people that when we are uncomfortable, or lonely, or uncertain, or afraid, we have a digital pacifier for ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with that” (43:30). Drool Tech not only puts us in an unhealthy place, it actively degrades our ability to handle the unhealthy thoughts, emotions, and experiences we engage both on and offline.

One of the reasons for our lowered ability to handle conflict and real life is overstimulation.

Overstimulation 

Dr. Christakis, the Director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, has shown overstimulation is a major issue for developing brains. 

In a TEDx presentation, Dr. Christakis shared his research on digital tech and the overstimulation of brains of children under age seven. One group of children watched shows that move at the pace of real life, another group watched a show that moved faster than real life, and the third group watched a show that moved faster than real life and had violent content. His findings?

• When watching “Mr. Rogers” there was a 0% increase of inattention.
• When watching “Powder Puff Girls”, children were 60% more likely to experience inattention.
• And when watching violent programming, childcare were 110% more likely to experience inattention (Media & Children, Tedx Rainier, 2011). 

Dr. Christakis challenges parents to have “more real-time play and less fast-paced media.” If it’s faster than real life, it’s going to have a negative impact (Media and Children, 2011).

Designed to distract

But smart phones do not just overstimulate with the sheer rate and volume of content they deliver. They are also designed to reward and provoke. In his book The Hacking of the American Mind, Robert Lustig points out that our digital entertainment is focused on activating the body’s fight/flight system. “The cell phone is like a slot machine. With every ding a variable reward, either good or bad, is in store for the user” and the body is put on edge as it pursues the digital pathway to pleasure, unwittingly pumping the itself full of hormones like dopamine and adrenaline which can quickly lead to overstimulation (2017).

In his book Glow Kids Nicholas Kardaras emphasizes the power of the built-in reward mechanism in Drool Tech. In real life even an unhealthy stress-coping mechanism, like eating cake, is limited to how much you can eat and how long it takes to digest. Yet a digital escape can be pursued repeatedly, and in increasing intensity, for extended periods of time. “I can keep playing Minecraft or shooting the target in a shooter game as my dopamine squirts in rat-tat-tat fashion…the brain’s ‘braking mechanism,’ which control impulsivity — isn’t fully developed until well into a person’s twenties, a child simply doesn’t have the neurobiological apparatus to handle that level of stimulation” (2016). 

Smartphones: Just not worth it

As parents we can lovingly remove the instant access to such overwhelming stimulation. We can give our children the space they need to navigate the already difficult journey of growing up.

The hearts of our children, and their mental well-being are volatile enough in these adolescent years. Any upside offered by a smartphone is not worth the potential downsides. As parents we can prioritize the mental health of our children by not giving them a smartphone and helping them find healthy and appropriate ways to connect with their friends, interests, and world. 

pc: Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash