It appears that not only phones are ruining our brains, but also tablets. Adults have fully formed brains, so there’s no big danger in morphing our neurons and pathways, but the children have developing brains that need not be tempered with by gadgets. The latest official guidelines talk about the ideal usage time for tablets, when it comes to little ones.
The recommendation comes from the American Academy of Pediatrics, that tells us that children younger than 18 months should get zero screen time and those with ages 2 to 5 should only get one hour per day, which is half of the previous advice. Also, that hour should be “high quality programming” and the parents should watch it with their children.
Older children don’t get recommendations, aside from the usual ones, related to avoiding using slates just before bed time. On average children ages 2 to 11 watch about 4 hours and a half per day of recorded programming, with stuff like cartoons and Netflix in the mix. The number is very high and may pose some problems. Studies found that every hour of entertainment that a child watches in his first 3 years of life increases the odds of him developing attention issues at school at age 7 by 10%.
Some parents are too busy to tend to kids, so they just leave them for hours in front of the tablet, which is not OK at all. More attention and maybe sharing that digital entertainment is a good idea.
