Dr Jen Recommends
Dr Jen Recommends
E1 Top 5 Things You Should Know about Screen Time
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Dr Jen Recommends these Top 5 Things you should know about Screen Time.
Too much screen time can result in serious issues for your family including sleep deprivation, ADHD, behavior issues and in extreme circumstances decreased brain tissue.
Here are the Top 5 Things You Should Know about Screen Time:
- What exactly is Screen Time?
- What are the current clinical recommendations for Screen Time?
- What are the effects of too much Screen Time?
- Can the effects of too much Screen Time be reversed?
- What are some alternatives to spending so much time in front of a screen?
Dr Jen's Recommendations can be accessed here:
[inaudible] welcome to the Dr. Jen recommend show where Dr. Jen has done the research for you. So you don't have to. Jim's a pediatrician, a mom , and loves to share her knowledge of healthcare and wellness related topics. Sit back and relax and enjoy while Dr. Jane shares her knowledge with you. Welcome to the very first episode of the Dr. Jen recommend show. My name is Brent. I have with me, Dr. Jennifer Lyles, she's a pediatrician, a mom and acupuncturist, and so much more including my wife. Hey, Dr. Jen
Speaker 2There today. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about screen time. So this topic , uh , sometimes can, can ruffle some feathers and be a bit controversial. But , uh, I have had several cases lately where this has come up and it's been very young children, and it's also been some of our preteens and teenagers. So I know that with an unprecedented year of 2020, going into 2021 with COVID and quarantining, and a lot of school being held at home online , uh , screen time is kind of out the roof and in the amount of time that our kids and teens are spending on onscreen . So I've just really, that is near and dear to my heart. We are helping a lot of kids through my practice kind of detox from this. And so I thought it would be a fun topic to start with.
Speaker 1Well, that brings us to the very first thing you should know about screen time. And that is what exactly is screen time.
Speaker 2So screen time is literally anything that you do that has a screen on it. And so it can be fun activities that kids are doing as a pastime or a hobby. So video games , uh, phone use YouTube watching whether it's on an iPad or a phone TV watching , uh , it even does include school time, computer use. And so that is when they're going to computer class that also includes, I know a lot of elementary school and middle school students do schoolwork on Chromebooks and things like that. So all of that counts as screen time.
Speaker 1What are the clinical recommendations out there for screen time?
Speaker 2Yeah, so those, those have changed here in the past year. So in 2020, the American Academy of pediatrics actually modified their , uh , screen-time recommendations. And they really did try to, I guess you could say soften or, or at least adapt with COVID-19 and with quarantining. And so in under two, so 18 months to two years of age, really, we shouldn't let our children watch really any screens, but they did make a modification of that. And that is that they are okaying the use of Skyping and FaceTiming to keep in touch with distant family members. So I know , um , our own daughter, she just lights up when we FaceTime with , with her lolly and Papa. So my parents, that's what we call them, but she just gets so excited to see them. And so it's kind of neat to see that very young infant and toddler , um, you know, them interact with people from a distance. So screen time in under two is usually a no-no. However, with , um , the exception of video chatting, the recommendations for two to five years of age are still pretty strict. Really. They should be watching one hour or less per day of a high quality program. Um, and that can be from sources such as like PBS kids or Sesame Sesame street workshop, something to that , um , manner, but one hour or less, if possible, now the five-year-old plus age, that used to be a recommendation of two hours or less now as a pediatrician, as a mom, as, as, as a friend who sees kids doing a lot of online school, you know, two hours or less of screen time is a bit , um, it's a bit unrealistic these days. So really it's all about balance. You know, we understand that , um , kids have to get their schoolwork done. A lot of that is being done over , um, computers. They also are, unfortunately not able to go out and hang out with their friends like they once were. So some socializing is done over, over social media and other screen times. And so what we say is just, it's really all about balance. We need to have time dedicated throughout the day that is not attached to a screen. And so that would just be for instance, time that is spent eating sleeping, of course, which is so important. Um, just talking to people and having a conversation with your own family members that are face-to-face and just taking that time for exercise and for other things that are not associated with screening.
Speaker 1The third thing on our list of the top five things you should know is what are the effects of too much screen time.
Speaker 2There's actually several studies out there that have shown some pretty significant symptoms and, and medical problems that can come from too much screen time. So Harvard published a wonderful article back in 2019, that basically said that screened too much screen time could interfere with everything from your sleep to a child's creativity and thinking. And so let's start with the sleep. Um, I definitely recommend for my patients and parents , um , to stop screen time, at least one hour before bedtime. And the problem with screens is that they do emit a blue light and that blue light can decrease your own brains . Melatonin output, and melatonin is the hormone that is responsible for sort of making you sleepy as the sun goes down. So if a child's brain is not producing that, and they're watching some kind of licious, sorry, I'm picking on YouTube today, but let's say they're watching a YouTube video. There's a lot of stimulus. There's probably something fun. They're watching there's music. There's, there's something that they're interested in. So all of a sudden you're waking up that brain right before they're trying to go to sleep. So sleep has become a huge issue with too much screen time. Also, when , when Harvard that Harvard medical school study said, you know, it can affect their creativity. I thought that was very interesting because especially the younger child, if you put those very young children and we can just make up an age right now , um, our own daughter, when she gets, or when , when she tries to get a screen, she just sits there and kind of stares out it . We try so hard to not let her get those, but still they just, they crave them. So just take, for instance, that two to five-year-old that, that does sit in front of the TV. Sometimes they just sit there kind of mindlessly just staring at it. And so they're being entertained and yet they don't know how to use their own skills to then entertain themselves or makeup , makeup games, kind of things like that. So that's, that's one thing that they , um, that they published. There's another study that came out of Canada and it linked too much screen time with an increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but in the preschool age child. And so that is something interesting that I actually do see quite a bit of in my own practice is that when a child is having way too much screen time, just their behavior is a little bit off the charts and that's in a school setting, but also at home for the parents. And then probably the most kind of terrifying study that was out there. Um , this was actually done here in America at the national Institute of health. And it was back in 2018. It showed that children who spent more than two hours a day on screen time activities actually score lower on their language and thinking tests. But the scarier part of that was children that had greater than seven hours a day of screen time actually showed MRI changes of their brain. There was a thinning of the brain's cortex and that's the area of the brain related to critical thinking and reasoning. So screens can actually basically there's shut off your brain so much that the brain tissue actually atrophies or shrinks down. And that to me is pretty terrifying.
Speaker 1So extreme screen time could literally melt your brain. Yeah , correct. Correct. Wow. I mean, that's a lot of episodes of Daniel tiger, but it could happen, right?
Speaker 2Uh, yes, it, it unfortunately does happen because, you know, sometimes when a toddler, a young child's behavior is out of control, then the easiest thing to do is to turn on that screen, to pacify them . And so I could see that it could easily be done
Speaker 1And you see this in your office every day.
Speaker 2And I have, I have the greatest practice in the world. My, my patients and parents are truly just wonderful and they all are trying to do the right thing. But unfortunately, even in those parents that are stellar and doing, trying to do the right thing, they, you know, this , this kind of stuff still happens. Yes.
Speaker 1So let's consider that a one of our listeners may be concerned that their children are getting too much screen time and how some of these side effects, what can be done to reverse that . Yeah . That , that's the very hopeful part of this.
Speaker 2And, you know, I hate to make light of this because it is such a serious problem out there. That the awesome thing is, is because children's brains are so active and they're developing so quickly that there is time to reverse some of these effects, especially if they are addicted. And th that truly is an addiction technology and the stimulus that comes from the games and the things that children play. It does go to the addiction part of the brain and that very high stimulus part of the brain, the same as more adult problems of things that we as adults get addicted to. So the great thing is a child's brain is still growing so rapidly that if we can kind of come to terms with, you know, maybe my kiddo is watching too much TV or is playing too many hours worth of video games that we need to do something, do something different. So a true detox from technology, it can be pretty brutal. So it can take up to two weeks for a child's behavior to actually change. And , and them get, I guess we can truly say detoxed from technology. So in my practice, sometimes I will talk to parents about, okay, you know, let's just take, take everything away from them for two weeks, know that their behavior, especially those first few days is going to be kind of off the charts. They're going to have their ups and downs, but just trying to regulate things and get them on a good sleep schedule and get them playing with other toys within two weeks. Most parents notice a huge difference in things. So, so we just want to find those good high quality games and do things that are not technology related.
Speaker 1Sure. And that kind of brings us to number five in terms of things that you need to know about screen time, and that are what are some really good alternatives to screen time that can help us with this problem?
Speaker 2Basically, alternatives to screen time are just playing with your child. You know, your child needs to learn to be creative. He needs he, or she needs to learn to use their hands and build things and play with puzzles and things like that. So the number one thing, especially as the weather's getting beautiful outside, I always encourage parents to just get their kids outside. You don't have to be into sports if they don't want to play a sport, or if they're too young, but just go outside, go for a walk, play in the yard, get some bubbles, do, do those types of things that are outside and in nature, that's actually a really great way to auto-regulate your melatonin and your other hormones and in a great way to start detoxing them from the technology anyways. But another thing is you just want to enhance their creativity. So anything they can use with their hands right now , um, our daughter, who's just over one, she is loving kind of working with puzzles and things like that. I love Melissa and Doug products. Um, a lot of they're actually a lot of the basic kind of going back to the basic building blocks of wooden toys, puzzles, let them manipulate and figure out how to put pieces in. Now, a kid that has been watching too much TV or getting other kinds of, and things like that. You are going to notice at the beginning when you're trying to introduce puzzles and things to them, they might get frustrated easily. And that's because they've actually, they've gotten such instant gratification from the TV show that they don't really want to put any work into it. And so you'll find it may take them a couple of days before they're like, Oh, this is kind of cool. Nevermind. I like playing with this. So I think that's kind of interesting. Um, something interesting that I've seen in kiddos is that right there at the beginning, they will get a little frustrated having to work at something, but the more you keep doing with them, you're going to notice. They learn so quickly and they pick up on all of these new skills. Um, and a lot of these skills you may have noticed when they were possibly watching too much TV and things they weren't doing at all, actually. So I've had several kids at the office that may have fallen a little bit behind on their developmental milestones. And then , um, as they were able to get off technology, all of a sudden these milestones just start flourishing.
Speaker 1Well, that's great. That's good to know. So we know what screen screen time is. We know what the current recommendations are. We know what can happen if you have too much screen time, you know, that it can be reversed and how to do that. And we know what some of the alternatives are, and we're going to put a link in the show notes to some of their products. They look fun and they appear to be entertaining the kids. Dr. Jan , thank you so much for your recommendations. We appreciate you and congratulations on your first show.
Speaker 2Anybody has any other questions though, feel free to reach out to them .
Speaker 1That's right. You can find us at Dr. Jen recommends.com or send us an email at info at Dr. Jen recommends. And if you have recommendations for other topics that you'd like to hear about your Apple salon, we'd love to hear from thank you guys. [inaudible] .