Limit Media Time | Protect Your Child’s Developing Brain – AAP
Avoid media time – including TV, computer, phone or other electronic devices – for toddlers and infants under age two and limit it to under two hours/day for children and teens is the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
I can’t even imagine what it would be like raising a child in today’s media world. In fact, I was talking with my youngest daughter (age 24) the other day, and she said SHE was glad there was no Facebook when she was a teen – especially during middle school – because of the immediacy of the angst producing thoughts and feelings FB offers (someone doesn’t “like” a status update or you’re not invited to a party or someone makes a snarky comment about your appearance in a tagged photo) at a time when those thoughts and feelings are naturally rampant.
But of equal concern with media time is its impact on brain development. As you know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, it’s that brain piece that’s of particular concern for whatever activity one repeatedly does, the brain works to embed maps (neural network connections) around those activities.
Media Time and the Developing Brain
I shared the following in my March 9, 2010 article, “The Brain and the First Three Years of Life.”
Due to important brain developmental processes occurring from birth, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends zero media time for infants and toddlers.
Dr. Paul Thompson’s Time Lapse Study of Brain Development, ages 5 – 20, helps us appreciate that the brain goes through significant developmental changes – darker colors represent brain maturity – meaning neural network wiring.
We are born with approximately 100 billion brain cells but only a fraction are “wired.” It takes neurons (brain cells) talking to neurons — or “wiring” — for us to do whatever it is we do. Dr. Norman Doidge uses the phrase, “Neurons that fire together, wire together,” in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself. This “firing together, wiring together” causes the brain to form “brain maps” for everything we think, do, feel or say. For example, the act of my typing this blog post involves my fingers, my eyes, my mind recalling research, my body and its posture — all working seamlessly together in a manner I don’t even think about. It just happens; happens thanks to neural networks wiring together because they fired together to form the brain map for how I “write.”
Now, read this quote that I received in a newsletter from SAMHSA informing readers that National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day is on May 6, 2010.
“Research has found that core brain development, 85 percent of which occurs in the first three years of life, shows differences in brain structures and function based on the child’s experiences in relationships with others and with their social context.” Shonkoff, J. & Phillips, D. A. (Eds.). (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods. Washington, DC: National Academy of Science
Further – according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Overview of Early Brain and Child Development” – “Recent scientific advances are driving a paradigm shift in the understanding of how child development impacts human health and disease across the lifespan. Early social and environmental experiences (the ecology) and the genetic predispositions (the biology) influence the development of adaptive behaviors, learning capacities, lifelong physical and mental health, and future economic productivity.” Continue reading this piece…
The concern about media time makes sense when taken in context of the above. For although we are born with approximately 100 billion brain cells, at birth about all we can do is sleep, eat, poop and urinate, cry and breath. If our neurons were all wired at birth, we’d come out running, laughing, reading, talking and doing calculus. Because the brain continues to form brain maps and input gets more advanced and complicated (think school, sports, music, relationships…), in the first decade of life, trillions of neural networks are formed. So here is where media time enters the picture, and for that, we turn to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
American Academy of Pediatrics on Media Time for Children
“Today’s children are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices. To help kids make wise media choices, parents should monitor their media diet. Parents can make use of established ratings systems for shows, movies and games to avoid inappropriate content, such as violence, explicit sexual content or glorified tobacco and alcohol use,” AAP. Please find the following helpful resource links:
Helping Kids Be Safe Online – Safety Net
Bottom line… long before the age at which we start to have a memory of our lives, our neural networks are being formed in response to what is going on around us. And that “what is going on around us” – including media time – has a profound impact on how our neural networks wire.
Additional Articles of Interest
Give Their Brains a Break
What Were You Thinking
Stress and the Developing Brain
Understand Brain Maps | Change a Habit | Change Your Life
Lisa Frederiksen
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Lisa,
Heartfelt gratitude and regret…gratitude that you’re bringing this information forward in such an interesting and discernable way and regret that I did not pay more attention to this when my kids were being reared…
But ALAS! it’s not too late and we can make new brain maps, right? So cool to know we have the best processor in the Universe that can upgrade itself with a little help from its Herby..or whomever.
Your posts are the best and if anyone might be interested, I interviewed a really enlightened psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Newsom who makes it his practice to help kids and people who have “abused” their media time: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/9-integrated-holistic-addiction/id643868844?i=161835649&mt=2
And thanks for taking such great care of your brain, Lisa. It shows.
Agree! Never too late and you are an excellent resource for readers on how to improve brain health – check out Herby’s website http://recoveryhealthcare.me/blog/
And thanks so much for sharing Dr. Newsom’s work – love your Sober Conversations, Herby!
Thanks Lisa, and I don’t think we all can talk about this too much. The fact that a lot kids are spending 7 hours a day on electronics doesn’t surprise me but it is startling. My kids are mid to late teens, and would do it differently if I could go back a bit. And now I just take that and try to share it with my slightly younger friends. 🙂 Oh the days of playing outside ALL day…
Great piece, as usual, Lisa. This stuff fascintes me. Did the Doidge book and couldn’t put it down. Come on, think about it, folks – how could “entertainment media” NOT be having a huge impact on the brains of our children. Sooo much is potentially invovled here: neural wiring, impact of lack of face-to-face social interaction, and who knows what else? Heck, what about the eyes? We have to be assertive in looking-out for our children – and that means monitoring the media bit. Thanks for this great heads-up article, Lisa, with all of the resources (as usual). Hey! “…at birth about all we can do is sleep, eat, poop and urinate, cry and breath.” Just another day at the ranch here…
Bill
Hi Lisa,
Great article and so needed. This line “Today’s children are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices.” makes me cringe. It is true and true for adults as well, but with the developing brain, it is so important to monitor the media. Thanks for sharing this important topic!
Thanks, Cathy – I was surprised by the 7 hours/day figure, as well. Given children are awake an average of 14 hours/day – as you said – spending half of those hours with media products is frightening given brain the developmental processes we now understand occur from infancy through early 20s. I appreciate your comment!
Ditto on what your daughter said, Lisa. I think frequently how grateful I am that Facebook didn’t exist when I was a teen for those very reasons. I can’t even imagine what Facebook would have done to my fragile self image in those tender years. In fact, when I first joined Facebook (back when I was a senior in college and it was exclusively for college students and it was still known as TheFacebook), I remember thinking, “This is not good. People are going to make me feel so uncool because they’ll be posting stuff about their perfect, exciting lives.” Yet I joined…and then the rest of the world did, too.
Kids are on electronic devices SEVEN HOURS PER DAY?! It’s time for parents to follow that great advice to have screen-free rooms and times. We ALL should have screen-free times.
Thanks for the reminder to get away from the screen a bit more often.
Boy, I’m a big ditto on what she said, as well. I just can’t imagine! And, yes – wasn’t that a staggering number of hours. I know myself I get so caught up in checking and interacting with my cell phone text messages, email, BTC FB page, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn (I’ve stopped short at Pinterest and Instagram) – and find it consumes so many, many hours of my day! Yet, I feel compelled to do so as social media networking is a big part of how my message gets out there. But wow – don’t have an answer, that’s for sure. Thanks for adding your comment, Jody!