Too much screen time can physically change our kids’ brains and impact their ability to understand empathy, read facial expressions and even filter out noise. NEUROSCIENCE EDUCATOR KATHRYN BERKETT explains more.
It’s not what kids watch or do on screens that bothers Kathryn Berkett; it’s what they’re not doing that concerns her most.
The neuroscience educator believes screens are fine in moderation but says children’s brains miss learning important skills such as empathy, reading facial expressions, and coping with feedback if they aren’t engaging in the real world enough.
“(Brain) cells that fire together, wire together,” she says. So what they’re missing out on doing when sitting in front of a screen, doesn’t get wired in.
What makes this more challenging is that screens can be particularly tempting to kids during crucial development periods when the brain is “upgrading”, inhibiting this development.
Throw into the mix the constant notifications from mobile phones, which can distract us, affect relationships by pulling us away from real-life interactions, disrupt sleep and alter brain development. You can see why the amount of time your child spends on devices matters.
Notifications on phones trigger dopamine, the happy hormone, to be released, making them addictive, Berkett says. New research from 2degrees’ Fairer Phones Project, has found that for Gen Z – the first to grow up entirely online – 38 percent of them feel overwhelmed, panicked or anxious by the number of notifications they receive. And research from Common Sense Media in the US shows that teenagers receive an average of 237 daily notifications. That’s a lot of disruption and dopamine hits. 2degrees has launched a NO-tifications initiative as part of its goal to help support healthier relationships with phones.
The impact on young brains
Berkett says younger teens’ brains change “massively” for a few years after puberty, and this is a crucial time for them to pick up skills such as learning how to communicate with a new group of people and “form a new tribe”.
“It’s all about facial expressions, the intonation in our voice. ‘Are you really saying that?’ ‘Are you not?’ ‘I hate you.’ ‘I like you’. ‘I don’t like you. ’ All of that stuff is huge, and when the brain is learning it the most, is when it finds it the most difficult, so they hide behind their screens.”
For three- or four-year-old kids, essential skills develop as they play with things like water and blocks, and even while arguing over who gets to be Superman from the costumes in the dress-up box.
“All of these things are just amazing for the brain. But when we go to a computer and just make ourselves Superman (as an avatar), that’s not connecting up things in the brain.”
Losing empathy
Concerningly, empathy, which Berkett describes as “one of the most incredible things we need to have to be a good human”, is also impacted.
She says the “little building blocks” of empathy are not being picked up by kids along the way when they spend too much time on screens. Too much screen time can also leave them wired for stimulation and struggling to exist in a low-stimulation, parasympathetic environment, also known as the ‘imagination space’.
Struggling with feedback
At the other end of the age spectrum, Berkett hears feedback from workplaces where employees find it difficult to cope with constructive feedback delivered face-to-face. This is because staff haven’t learned the skills of reading and coping with facial expressions. As a result, they misinterpret feedback as bullying, or “as ‘you don’t like me’,” Berkett says.
How much is too much?
Being behind a screen is fine in moderation, Berkett says.
“If you’re (only) going to do that for half an hour a day, but the rest of the time, you’re going to be with people and understand empathy and understand how people feel and when you’re mean to them, it hurts them. Then that counteracts it.
“But know that if our kids don’t get exposed to it, they don’t learn it. And that’s what’s hugely worrying in my mind about brain development.”
Berkett says that around age 16 or 17, children’s prefrontal cortex has developed to a point that they can make better overriding decisions, and so this is the best age for them to have their own smartphone or control over their own device.
“Before that, their emotional brain, their dopamine kick, is in control. And we’re giving them devices when they’re being led by their emotions.”
Berkett’s tips for growing good brains
Explain to kids that big corporations are making money out of them
Berkett says that smoking cessation campaigns have shown one of the most effective ways of stopping kids smoking was to explain how big corporations were making money out of them. Try the same approach with kids who are overusing devices.
Model the right behaviour yourself (and do it straight away)
When your child speaks to you, put down the device and focus on what they’re saying.
“If we’re having conversations with phones in our hands, with computers in our hands, we’re saying we’ve got work to do and it’s more important.”
Berkett recommends modelling good device behaviour from as young as possible.
“Because once they become teenagers, we have significantly less control.”
Protect sleep
Make a rule that there are no devices in the bedroom, or ensure they have no access to them when they should be sleeping.
Turn off as many notifications as possible, or learn not to react to them until you’re ready
Berkett trained herself and her kids to be able to leave their phones on but not react to each ‘ping’ or notification.
“We need to train ourselves to not be a Pavlov’s dog and salivate to the bell,” she says.
2degrees suggests teaching your kids to be very selective when apps ask them to send notifications and to regularly review their notification settings.
Consider getting a ‘dumb’ phone for the kids.
‘Dumb phones’, without smartphone capabilities, are great for maintaining the safety aspects of having a phone, without the online temptation.
Ask yourself: What have I done for my child’s brain today? How have I grown them?
It could be as small as having a conversation, challenging their thought process, going for a walk, or simply asking them what they learned today.
“If you can’t take away the bad, counteract it with good. So let’s fill their brains up with as much good as we can.”
Check out Kathryn Berkett’s TedX Talk on the Neuroscience of device zombies.
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