A study from the US should provide first clues that smartphones make kids stupid. The cell phone critics did not listen to the researchers until the end.
An interview with a US brain researcher was enough to unsettle parents around the world: children who spend a lot of time in front of screens have a thinner brain cortex, said Gaya Dowling of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), CBS about a week ago. Numerous media have since taken up the report. „This is how cell phones change the brains of our children“, headlined for example the „Bild“. But is that really true?
One thing is clear: Already two-year-olds often get along well with smartphones and tablets, as a study in 2015 has shown. Every second child at the age of nine already owns a mobile phone, at the age of 13 it is even 92 percent. However, how media use affects brain development in the long term remains unclear. There is a lack of reliable study results.
Normal process
This is to change a large-scale US study, in which the brain development of more than 11,800 children over ten years to be observed. Cost: $ 300 million. Dowling, who provided the excitement with her interview, is working on exactly this study.
For children who use smartphones, tablets or video games for more than seven hours a day, researchers have found brain changes, Dowling said in the interview. For example, the cerebral cortex of the affected children is thinner. „This is the wrinkled outermost layer of the brain that processes information from the five senses,“ Dowling explained. The evidence seemed to be made: Smartphones shrink children’s brains.
However, many media overlooked what the researcher said otherwise – and that sounded much less threatening:
A thinning cortex, according to Dowling, is part of the maturing process of the brain. „What we would expect later happened a little earlier.“ In addition, the researchers could not yet say whether the media use is really responsible for the change of the brain or if there are other reasons for it. It is also unclear how a thinner cortex will actually work. For longer studies are needed. The study has just begun.
Results will only come in several years
It was also unclear in how many children a thinner brain cortex was detected. So far, the doctors have according to their own brain scans of 4,500 subjects examined. How many of these children squat more than seven hours a day in front of the smartphone, the TV or the console, said the researchers so far not with. However, there are only a few.
But even if research can not provide any answers, the concern of many parents remains. Many doctors and psychologists also agree: spending too much time in front of the screen can harm children, especially if they move less. And not only parents are annoyed when the kids keep staring at their mobile phones, but also the kids. A primary school student has even recently organized a demo against smartphones.
What can also help in the smartphone hysteria, is a little more serenity. Parents and educators have been condemning every new medium for centuries. For example, in the 18th century, researchers warned against reading. The educator Karl G. Bauer complained: „The lack of all physical exercise in reading, in connection with the so violent alternation of ideas and sensations leads to slackness, mucous congestion, bloating and constipation in the bowels.“
