101–110 of 119 posts
Dubious at best. If one has children they notice quite visibly that screen time makes their children more agitated during the days they have screen time. And screen time is as addictive to children as it is to adults, and we should consider the effects they have on their developing brains.
Screens are poison.
A few kids in my 8yo son's class don't use screens. No TVs, phones, games, etc. Others are already binge watching StarWars, Minecraft, etc. The differences between these 2 groups are enormous in terms of their play, their attention during lessons, their overall academic achievements. I will never believe a study telling me that spending 2 hours watching star wars is better for a kid than going to build a fort in the…
The kids with screens already built forts and gained that, in this scenario it is the kids without screens that do the same mundane activity over and over while the kids with screens are experiencing new things. You learn the important parts about building forts or dams or tools very quickly, it isn't something you should be doing for years.
These are the sorts of "research" which severely undermines trust in research in general. Anyone who has children or who works with children knows that screen time adversely affects ability to focus, attention spans etc.
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Not being able to focus on 'boring' tasks is bad. When I had an addiction to social media, I could not enjoy 'slow' things. I also felt anxiety and depression. After detoxing I am again able to enjoy the 'slow' things, like taking time to learn and resisting instant gratification hits. Watching a movie sometimes requires 'getting into it' before you can really appreciate it. Most of our jobs are repetitive tasks. Eve…
If everyone found joy in boring tasks, wed never advance as a society. All progress is through laziness.
I'd suggest most of our progress was actually made by grinding through boring tasks. Many (most?) lazy people do not drive much progress.
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Indeed. I guess measurement of your "brain function or well-being" might not show any difference, but the way you perceive those activities might have changed completely. I have a similar observation regarding Movies. Funny how this can be improved by watching a movie in cinema, a purpose of cinema which silently grows while the original purpose of "better audio/video experience" is fading...
there is James Cameron quote, something to the effect of "a movie ticket is a contract between you and the director that you're going to give this uninterrupted attention"
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When science doesn't match your personal observations, that doesn't make the science wrong. It also doesn't make your personal observations wrong - it usually (in my experience) means that you're measuring/observing different things (assuming you're reasonably intelligent, which I am doing). In this case, "cognitive development and well being" are complex concepts that probably do not map exactly (or maybe even gross…
When it comes to social science and studies involving self reporting I don't give it the same weight as I would to a study where all the variables are quantifiable and controlled And in this case the quantifiable, non-self-reported part is the MRI brain scans they're doing, but what does that data indicate? I'm too ignorant of neuroscience to know. Are all changes in behavior and cognition detectable through an MRI s…
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Maybe you should try expanding your cinematic repertoire, if that's the impression you have of movies? I'm saying this genuinely, not to make a snide point or anything. There are some really good movies out there that aren't just "the same beats over and over again." If, say, you're only watching big studio blockbusters, try branching out into smaller dramas, that kind of thing.
The last movie I thoroughly enjoyed was (you're going to laugh and I'm OK with that): Hardcore Henry Frenetic, insane, indulgent, madness. Loved it. Can stand most blockbusters, can't stand most dramas.
A lot of rough edges can be forgiven for just a little bit of mad creativity.
These are the sorts of "research" which severely undermines trust in research in general. Anyone who has children or who works with children knows that screen time adversely affects ability to focus, attention spans etc.
"No evidence screen time is negative for child cognitive development?" Really?
> analysed the cognitive function of 9-12 year old children alongside their self-reported screen time use
> no evidence was found to show that screen time impacted their brain function or well-being
Oh, I'm sure screen-time lights up all sorts of areas of the brain. Stimulation is the point. The test passes because they redefined the problem itself. And if I'm reading the abstract correctly, the test only ran for 2 years.
How'd they measure well-being? Because every other day there's articles published about how miserable all the kids are and how corrosive social media has been for their mental health.