En-ERGY in Motion (™) Suzy Rowland chats to Professor Sam Wass: Screen-time for Under 5s: Harmful or Helpful?

Your eyes are not deceiving you: This is the 2nd time Professor Sam Wass has been on the show - I enjoy chatting to him as his research is fascinating and potentially policy-shifting. As a developmental cognitive neuroscientist and  Director of Early Years and Youth (Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY) at University of East London, UK. 

At the University, his work involves studying how early environments including pre-school screen use, can shape early brain development, utilising world-leading methods.  These insights can support policy advice, training and consultancy.

Professor Sam's research advised a UK Government recommendation for children under 2 to not use screens at all and children up to the age of 5 to have only 1 hour of screen use!

Is this harmful or helpful to the developing brain as we know our world is digital now and kids need to learn these skills but is the early use of Apps and technology, harmful or helpful for early brain development? Listen in and make up your own mind!

You can find Professor Sam Wass on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Welcome to the Energy in Motion podcast.

Exploring what makes us move, what makes us thrive, what makes us happy, what keeps us alive. I'm Suzy Rowland, a mother, writer, poet, and founder of the Happy in School Project. As humans, we are emotional beings, literally energy in motion, which each of us express uniquely. Our energies influence everything in our lives. 

Join me in conversation with an eclectic range of guests using their energies to powerful effect. Tune in for the first series of Energy in Motion podcast. You'll find the Energy in Motion podcast on your favourite digital download channels. I can't wait for you to tune in and relax and enjoy the sound of energy in motion.

Hello, Professor Sam Wass. Thank you very much for joining myself and Pamela Ackuley on Energy in Motion podcast. Welcome. Thanks for having me.

Welcome. Welcome. Um just to remind people who haven't seen the first edition, although I know people have because they've actually said to me they've seen it and found it very very helpful with their with their children. Professor Sam was director of the Institute of Science in Early Years, a child psychologist and also a neuroscientist and many other things and I wanted to have a chat with you today in response to the research I know that you were part of to the DfE around screen usage. 

So screen use as we all know is a big part of young children's lives and it's seen as something that they need for the future but there are still important questions about how it might impact their development.  So today I want to just kind of have a little bit more of a leisurely conversation behind the headlines and just look at um you know how screens do impact developing minds in your early years and also whether parent carers really need the state to tell them what to do and the tech companies and how do we you know regain authority when many of our little ones are already hooked. So that's kind of that's kind of our sort of context. So just remind us the the three recommendations were no use of screens for under twos, an hour a day of screen time for under fives and no social media for under-fives either. So under twos, what why not? What is happening to a 24-month-old brain developmentally? Sam.

Yeah, Susie. So that's a really good question and I think the you know the general big picture answer to a lot of the things that you've been saying particularly about the you know what's the role of the state to intervene in this type of thing is because what we've been talking about a lot with the guidance is the needs of young brains are very very different to the needs of older brains I the conditions under which younger brains um uh learn best are very different to the conditions under which older brains learn best and know a lot of screen media content is designed for adults with showing similar types of content to young children and you know from a neuroscience point of view and from a research point of view there's a lot of ways in which it's impossible for parents to know that, you know we tend to assume you know I do it with my own kids all the time countless examples of ways in which I assume that what is optimal for my brain what my brain kind of enjoys learning from um is the same as what uh you know my three kids best is optimal for and you know in a lot of ways it's different and that's what we're going to be talking about today. 

And this is why I think you know personally I think it is important to be raising awareness about this because there's no way for parents to you know understand this um just from kind of talking to and interacting with their kids. 

Yeah. Um so the big difference so Susie is it all comes back down to this you know a basic aspect of how our brains work which is our brain is a prediction machine. So every word that I'm saying um your brain it doesn't feel like it. It's a weird thought to think but your brain is generating like word by word a prediction for what I'm going to say next. Yeah. And so if I suddenly cabbage and say a word that's, you know, unexpected in the context, then if I was measuring your brain activity, I would have had a little surprise response when I said that word cabbage. So we know from this and lots of other studies that um uh we're measuring context and we're making predictions. Yeah. And when we're listening to um kind of language, we're making predictions based on all of the previous language that we've ever heard.

Yeah. Similarly, when I'm looking around a scene, my eyes every time I shift my eyes, I'm predicting what I'm going to see in here and next. Every time I bite into a carrot and my brain is having a guess what the carrot's going to taste like. Yeah. And so one of the nice ways to illustrate this is that um goes back to Teletubbies. One of the great um kind of really got inside the mind of a toddler really really I think neuroscience informs a lot of really really interesting ways.

There's one of the things that happens a lot in the Teletubbies is the scene where you you go into this video on one of the Teletubbies Tommies um and you watch it for 2 minutes um and then it comes back to the Teletubbies and they say again again and then you watch the same two two-minute video again. Yeah.

Which for an adult is kind of very aversive. Yeah. Um because the first time you watch it as an adult Yeah. your brain is very good at making predictions. So you can guess what's going to happen next. Yeah. based on all of the different videos that you've watched in the past. Yeah. Uh so we make pretty good predictions the first time.

Yeah. And we learn from it pretty well the first time. Yeah. So the second time we think, well, I've already extracted so much information. Yeah. That there's no point in viewing it again. Yeah. I'm not learning so much, so I don't kind of um uh I don't want to view it again. Yeah. This process of kind of making predictions, guessing what's going to happen next, um and then testing whether that prediction was correct or not, that's all triggers dopamine release. So if we're learning, we find it rewarding.

Yeah. First time I get a lot of of dopamine release. I learn a lot from watching it as an adult. The second time as an adult I've already learned from it, so I don't get so much dopamine release, so I don't find it rewarding. Yeah. But for children, it's very very different. Yeah. The first time, Yeah, as an adult, I'm kind of guessing what's going to happen next based on all this prior knowledge. Children don't have that prior knowledge. Yeah. So, they don't work so well at guessing what's going to happen next from one moment to the next. 

So, they don't extract so much information from it the first time they watch it. And then the second time they watch it, they've just watched it. So they've got some more knowledge. So that means that they're better at making predictions. That means they actually learn more from it. So they pay more attention to it the second time. Yeah.

So as a general principle, what we know is, you know, most of the world just simply happens too fast for children to keep up with. Yeah. Because they don't have this prior knowledge. Yeah. They can't generate these guesses for what's going to happen next. So well, so what they learn best from is repetition and familiarity. Yeah. They learn best from doing the same thing over and over again. Yeah. We also know that their brains are much much slower than um than an adult's brain. So they've done some studies like the fastest rate that you can see. 

Um in a um adult I can see up to 10 frames a second. So 10 flickers a second. Yeah. Whereas in an 18-month-old the fastest that they can see is one frame per second. Yeah. So anything that's been and gone in less than a second is too fast for their brains to process. Interesting. Yeah. So, so the neuroscience is clear that the types of content that children learn best from is repetitious. Yeah. Doing the same thing over again. Very predictable, doing kind of like predictable movements, reading the same book, even watching the same video over and over again. And slow paced. Yeah. Um, and in a lot of ways, yeah, these three things are what children aren't getting from screens.

Yeah. Screens tend to be much more fast-paced from the real world. Yeah. um uh it's very um uh it's very hard you know you can watch the same video over and over again but very often you know these YouTube algorithms are pushing us uh towards you know watching one video and then something else and then something else and then something else and there's also really really good quality evidence that like the screen content that we make for young children is um you know getting more fast-paced over time. So so basically all of these issues are true for all young children.

Yeah. this idea that they learn best from, you know, slow pace that they have problems keeping up with kind of fast-paced content. Yeah, that's true for all children, but it's especially true for n to twos. Yeah. The speed at which our brains work, you know, in naught to twos have got very little prior experience of this world. So, this process of making these predictions, working out what's going to happen next doesn't happen so well. So, they really struggle to keep up. Yeah. And then the last thing just on that um that is something that um we look at um in my research quite a lot is what happens when I'm watching content that is too fast-paced that my brain can't keep up with. Yeah. And and we know um that when this happens this kind of kind of hardwired evolutionary mechanism kicks in that when I'm in a situation where my brain can't predict what's going to happen next. 

Yeah. um this kind of mechanism kicks in to say a brain sends a signal to our bodies. Yeah. Saying you're in a situation where you don't know what's going to happen next, so you better be able to respond at a moment's notice. So something called the fight or flight nervous system kicks in. So that's all about our heart beating faster, getting a big release of energy to our muscles and that type of stuff.

Yeah. Um so um so this is, you know, developed as a as a survival mechanism. Yeah. Most of our development as a species, life's been pretty dangerous. We've actually had to run at a moment's notice. So if I'm in an unpredictable situation, it makes sense that my body is ready to respond at a moment's notice. Nowadays, it's not useful anymore because there aren't any predators out there anymore.

Um, and a lot of the time when children are experiencing this, you know, fast-paced, unpredictable content, they're sat at home on their sofa watching an iPad. Yeah. But this we still have the same inbuilt mechanism.

9:42 Yeah. And fast-paced unpredictable stuff puts us into fight or flight. Um, so this is why kids are ratty when they

9:48 come off screens. Um this we we think um this is um why there is good quality now correlational evidence between the

9:56 amount of screen time that children are watching and behavioral and dysregulate dbehavioral and emotional dysregulation.

10:03 And there were also quite a lot of papers coming out that we were reviewing putting together the evidence on um long-term correlations between the amount of screens you have early on

10:12 and what we call effective disorders. So anxiety and depression during later life. Yeah. And we think it might be due to this link. Yeah, if I'm

10:19 spending a lot of time um in this, you know, hyper alert, high aroused, uh I can't keep up. I need to be able to ready to respond at a moment's notice.

10:28 If I'm spending a lot of time in that state um as a young kid, yeah, we think it can contribute to us, you know, constantly being on knife edge, more

10:36 likely to collapse into, you know, dysregulation as a kid and more likely to be kind of anxious when we're older.

10:41 So, so that basically is why um the recommendation was nothing at all for N to twos just because their brains are the most slow- paced and then kind of

10:50 limits on the amount of screen exposure for older kids too.

10:53 Absolutely. So, what you're saying in a summary um if I've got you correctly is that the recommendations are important because the developing

11:01 brain learns that way. So that's the repetition and you know that's that's the way that the younger brains younger

11:09 than 24 months they need that slower delivery. They need that repetition and

11:16 most importantly of all they need to not be in their quote rep reptilian brain.

11:21 They need to be in their in their um prefrontal cortis which is very underdeveloped at that point. So they can't spend too much time in that state of heightened emotion. Yeah, basically.

11:34 So, yeah, I mean there's quite a few things I want to say to that, Susie.

11:37 It’s a good point. Nice summary. So, I mean, the first thing is, yeah, it's basically just a question that, you know, as I mentioned, the the ways that

11:45. my kids learn best are different to the way that my 47year-old adult brain learns best. Yeah. So, you know, one example that I always think was when my

11:54 son, he's he's six now, was when he first was about four, we decided he could watch Netflix for the first time.

11:59 Yeah. And when he first started watching, I would choose what he'd watch. Um um and then, you know, put a show on and give it to him to watch. And then after a few months, we decided he

12:08. 12 minutes, 8 seconds

was ready that he could choose what he watched. Um and if you look back at the viewing history, it's really quite stark that um when I was deciding what I was watching, I was always choosing

12:16 different shows, always different episodes of different shows. Yeah. Um and the minute he was able to choose for himself what he watched, he would always

12:24 watch the same show and often watch the same episode again and again.

12:27 This was a few years ago. This was before I'd started thinking a lot about this, you know, the importance of repetition for young brains and and this is just simply, you know, I'm an adult.

12:35 I want the best for my for my kid. Yeah.

12:38 I want him to have the best time he can have, but I assume that the way he the what what's best for him is best for me.

12:45 So, because my brain works best by always watching different content, I assume that that's what I give him.

12:50. Yeah. Um whereas in fact, you know, when he gets a chance to choose and also, you know, when we get a chance to understand what's happening inside his brain, then then it's very different. It's the same

12:5 with everything. You know, I was presenting the same thing to a bunch of librarians. Um I've been presenting it quite a lot to librarians and this this Scottish librarian was saying that Sam,

13:06. you're really doing my head in because it's so inbuilt into my like whole mindset that my job as a librarian is to encourage kids to be always reading a different book every time.

13:16. And this idea, and you know, it's something that you talk about a lot with early practitioners, too, because you know that when a kid's tottering

13:24 over to you with this hopeful expression with this book, holding this book, and you're like, "Oh my god, I've read this

13:31 book 300 times. I'm going to be sick if I have to read this book again." So, it's a really big part of lots of different aspects of earlier practice, not just screens.

13:40 Yes. We we joke about it as adults, don't we? That you know when they they read the book and you know you turn over the page of the um you know Rald Doll

13:48 and they know every word. They know every bit sort of bit of and then she said this and you know they kind of can

13:55 they sort of I watched my children and they're lip reading as I'm going along and they know all the words all all your expressions and and you think um maybe

14:05 it's just comforting but what you're saying actually is that repetition is a key learning element that's really important to understand and not being

14:14 stressed out as well. So just moving on to the second question.

14:18 Um children love mastery over things like defeating baddies. Um so how can we replicate that sort of engagement and enjoyment and challenge offline?

14:30 Yeah. So there's a lot of different it's a good question Susie. There's a lot of different ways um that we can think

14:37 about this. I mean, one bit that I'm not I'm genuinely not sure about the

14:46 answer to is I'm just writing a book on this and I'm reflecting on this at the moment that you know I was saying that

14:54 like fast-paced unpredictable content puts us into this fight or flight mode.

14:59 Yeah. And there's also good, really, really good quality evidence, tons of evidence that playing computer games where we're controlling a character

15:07 who's an imagined danger puts us into fight or flight mode. Yeah, for sure.

15:14 And the bit I don't understand is why why do we enjoy being in that mode? Like why do we seek it out? Yeah. Mhm.

15:24 I get that when I'm when I've spent a lot of time in that state. Yeah.

15:32 I kind of get used to being in that state. Yeah. So, you know, when you talk about this to early practitioners, you know, that they'll always they'd always

15:40 be able to tell you about stories about kids who, you know, you can tell that they have, you know, quite an unpredictable life at home because, you know, this idea of unpredictability that

15:47 I've been talking about is not just about screens. It's also about parent child interactions. Yeah. And then it's also about, you know, the home environment generally. And there's a lot of evidence that you know partic some

15:56 children experience particularly unpredictable home environments and you know that affects them in lots of different ways but one of the ways it definitely does affect them is it

16:03 affects your kind of set point for stress. Yeah. Your kind of your natural your idling level. Yeah. If you think of it like an engine. Yeah. Um and if I'm

16:11 used to being in a home environment where I often have to react at a moment's not to something stressful that's happened. Yeah. I might my my part of the brain called the brain stem kind of starts to idle at that level.

16:21 Yeah. So um so I so you often hear early practitioners you know kids who have that type of home environment who are like that when stuff gets a bit calm you

16:30 know in a nursery at school seeking out a bit of stimulation. Yeah.

16:34 So they'll, you know, they'll do something that they know they're, you know, they'll climb on a block that they've been allowed to climb and then they'll look at a practitioner saying, "Right, what you going to do about it?" That type of thing.

16:43 So, so we know that if I'm used to being in a stressful situation, then playing something like a computer game and I'm

16:51 controlling a character in an imagined danger um um uh will kind of put me in that mode. But the bit that I don't

16:58 understand is I think it goes a bit deeper than that. I think, you know, with my own kids, just watching them closely, it it's not, you know, most ofour lives quite relaxing. You know, we live we moved out London. We we live in quite a small town now, lots of fields around, that type of stuff, and they're generally relatively relaxed. But like

17:15 when something exciting comes up, like screens, they're immediately drawn to it. Yeah. And I don't really understand I can't really articulate to you know

17:22 what it is why you know you'd want to you choose to spend so much time you know if you think about kids you know spending spending hours and hours and

17:31 hours playing Fortnite they're spending hours and hours and hours in this fight or flight mode faster you often notice them it's cold but they're sweating

17:39 sweating yeah that's my son yeah windows are open windows are open room's a little bit smelly yeah yeah cuz he's sweating cuz it's 5

17:47 he's been on the game and I'm like why is the window open. What is arm gaming?

17:51

Oh, okay. And yeah, he he's completely adrenalized completely.

17:55

And I thought that was part of his ADHD profile, which I do believe it is because there he met lots of online

18:02 friends. Um but I think when I when I go into schools and I'm I do training on online safety and I have a slide and I

18:10 just just show logos um Tik Tok, Instagram, um Roblox, just a couple of logos flat

18:18 up on the screen and in primary school they go absolutely nuts. Yeah.

18:24

Just by looking at the logos you're thinking it's like a doorway to the excitement. They kind of recognize that they're there and they're screaming and

18:32

just a slide full of logos. What's going on here? Yeah. Yeah.

18:36 It's very that's the part of the story that I don't really understand, you know, why we get drawn to stress. Yeah.

18:44

Why we seek out stress. Um the one thing that I think is um you

18:52 know so I think that so as from a research point of view the literature on computer games is much more mixed um than the literature on um

19:00 uh TV in terms of kind of benefits versus kind of up upsides versus downsides. Well you mentioned earlier about this uh kind of the link I can't

19:08 remember I you link what you're kind of missing out on when you get a screen.

19:12 One of the things I think is important with with different ways of using screens is that videos are very passive. Yeah. So when you're watching a TV Yeah.

19:21 Um you're basically just tracking the movement. Yeah. So we have inbuilt you know this automatic mechanism that helps us to pay attention to movement. Yeah. And again it's for evolutionary reasons.

19:30 It used to be a threat detection system um that you know if there's movement anywhere in our visual field we automatically pay attention to it. Yeah.

19:37. Um nowadays again it's not useful because we don't have predators in our environments anymore but it's hardwired in our brains to pay attention to

19:45 movement. So this is why everyone finds it relaxing to watch TV at the end of the day because you know you don't have to um you know choose to pay attention. Yeah. So this automatic

19:54 attention mechanism happens really low down in the brain right at the bottom here. You know just watch whatever's moving. And then the voluntary attention

20:01

is um uh you know up here under the frontal cortex and this is the the bit that's us choosing what we pay attention to. Yeah. You don't have to use this choosing um when you're viewing screens.

20:12 Yeah. And which is why we find it relaxing. And this one of the reasons why uh we think you know there's certainly good lots quite a lot of

20:19 correlational evidence linking high screen exposure to things like ADHD.

20:22 probably just because, you know, when you're spending a lot of time in this very passive mode, Yeah. where you're just following the movement, you don't get as much chance to practice, you

20:31 know, controlling your own behavior by, you know, paying attention to things. Yeah.

20:34 Absolutely. So, that's true for video, but it's less true uh for games because games a lot of the time you do have to do quite a lot of planning. So,

20:42. to play, you know, Fortnite, for example, you have to, you know, you use use, you know, it's not just you passively watching the movement. you 

20:51 doing, you know, working out what the rules of a game are, uh, you know, generating hypotheses, testing them, and that type of stuff. And it actually fits

20:58 that the the literature on the, you know, upsides and downsides of video game playing on on brain development is, you know, much more nuance. There's

21:07 there's, you know, definitely quite a lot of evidence for upsides um, as well as downsides, whereas there's less evidence for upsides from watching

21:14 watching kind of video. Um, so so that's fine. But the point about spending a lot of time in a high stress state, I I wouldn't say there's upsides for that.

21:21 But I I don't, you know, I just don't know about that. I I can't give you an explanation for why they're so drawn to the high stress state. But they certainly seem to know the only other

21:30 thing to say about that is I am too. You know, I'm addicted to anything when I get a thing saying, "Can you go on a radio to talk about this?" Like it still makes me nervous. I always say yes. And

21:38 I'm sure it's that same thing. Just Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm going to I'm going to invite um Pamela just to share um your experience. So you Pamela Achili

21:46 um is you're a guest of um you're not a guest you're a founder of just like me stories and mixed reality and so you

21:53 have created augmented reality story books for primary age children at the moment and where the images in the books

22:02 are animated by the use of an app. So talk me through how that works and how how what have you witnessed since you've

22:10 seen it in you know with your own children.

22:12 Yeah absolutely. So, for those who may be unaware what augmented reality is, or AR for short, um it's a type of

22:19 technology that basically adds digital things like images, animations, or sounds on top of the real world. So, you

22:27 may have used it, for example, if you've gone to IKEA um and they used to have an app where it means that you could go into your living room and download an

22:35 app and then suddenly you'll be able to see the bed that you saw on their website in your living in your bedroom. So you could see it in the real world.

22:44 So it's digitally overlaying in the real world. So it's very different from virtual reality, which is 100% in a virtual reality environment. So the way

22:52 that we use augmented reality is very intentional. So we use it in children's books and learning resources. And the

23:00 reason that we used it is because um I'm a mother of three boys and my eldest son, Walter, is autistic and he was non-speaking until the age of eight. and

23:08 we really struggle to find books and resources that support these needs. Um, and as all of us parents are aware,

23:16 regardless of a child's ability, they are kind of hyperfixated on screens.

23:21 Screens is like that kind of thing that kind of alerts them and captivates them.

23:26 And the same was for my son, but in a very different kind of way. So, we realized that Walter was going towards his tablet time and time again and again

23:34 back to that repetition. He was watching the same animations and programs and then he started to tap on the characters

23:41 or mimic the sounds. And for a child who is non-speaking, that was a huge milestone for us. And we started to

23:48 witness how he was almost trying to talk with the animations, tap on the sounds, and also almost become part of that of

23:56 that character. And that was huge for us. So I thought, what would it look like if we could combine both of those

24:03 two worlds? So we still have a book. Um I write the children's books and first and foremost the book is the key. It is

24:11 so important. Um but also we need to recognize that not every individual or child can pick up a book, read that

24:18

information, understand that information um and you know retain that information as well. So we thought how can we take

24:26 um the beauty of a book but then digitally overlay it with animation and sound and 3Ds um gamification in there

24:34 as well um so that children are no longer just kind of like passive readers they become like very much active participants in the story and we've

24:43 written the story so that you can literally you would not know that it's augmented reality book it looks the same as every other children's book out there

24:52 um but if you do have children who are maybe disengage with traditional books or have um or neurodivergent learners and they need maybe a little bit more

25:00 assistance and they need that kind of audio or kinesthetic and doing something as they're reading or they respond very

25:08

much to um audio cues and things like that. We realize that augmented reality kind of taps into all those different

25:15 learning journeys for that individual reader and it's such a joy to see. And I'll be completely honest with you,

25:22

before I had children, I was 100% adamant that I would have tech-free children. So, no screens or anything

25:30

25 minutes, 30 seconds like that. And then I realized how this technology in um was such a kind of

25:37 gateway and portal for my son's learning and development and confidence and his enthusiasm.

25:45 And he's gone from a non-speaking to a child to a child who's talking all the time. And more importantly, he loves books in all different formats. Whether

25:53 it's audio books, whether it's normal traditional books, whether it's our AR books that he absolutely loves. But we've realized that it adds another

26:01

layer of curiosity. And also if you have got complex storylines or things that you know children are not um naturally

26:10 kind of able to digest the augmented reality allows you to adapt to that by adding animation and by adding

26:18 gamification and things like that. And through school trials we've realized that it's massively increased retention levels and reading

26:27

for pleasure and it's allowed children to become really really curious. And I think intentionality is the key when you're de developing things like this.

26:36

So with our app, it's not a case of you place your phone or tablet over the book and then yeah, you see the character move and that's kind of like yeah, it's really cool. It's really intentional. So

26:44 we're getting the child to literally read the story, respond to the story, touch on certain things, so they've got that kind of learning through play as

26:52. well and development. And I think that's what's really key. And then we write the stories so that we encourage the child to kind of almost like go back into the

27:00 real world. So you know whether that could be like okay yeah so the character's been playing drums and you get to actually play drums with a character that's really great. What

27:08 could you find in your house that could you know cause some noise or you mean go outside and name three things that you can see smell and touch and all those

27:16 kind of things as well. So I don't think it's a case of it has to be books or technology. We're starting to see that the two can work together, but you have

27:25 to be really intentional with the use of that.

27:28 Yeah, that sounds great. Pab, can I just So, basically what the explanation I'd give for, you know, why it works from a

27:37 kind of neuroscience point of view is basically I mean because exactly what you were saying. So, it sounds Sorry, I forgot your son's name. You mentioned it in the passing.

27:46 Yeah, Walter.

27:47. Walter. So um so basically so I was I was mentioning that you know these multimodal clues kind of the movement

27:54 and the sound uh kind of help um uh kind of help capture our attention. Yeah. So what I would um say was the reason that

28:02 you were finding that Walter was an issue struggling with books I guess was because you know and this is very common with um children with kind of different forms of autism but he'll he'll struggle

28:11 to kind of control the focus of his attention. Yeah. if there's not something there to help, you know, attract his attention, draw it, like something kind of moving or some beep

28:19 some beeping, he'll he'll kind of he'll find it harder to get there on his own.

28:22 Yeah. So, it's kind of making it easier to sustain attention to the book by building something on top of it. Yeah.

28:30 And but then what what's really interesting is that you say that doing this has helped W to make the transition to other kind of types of books as well.

28:38 And you know and this is back to what you mentioned earlier that he he he he with the if if he can get a very high level of repetition so he can get to the

28:46 point where you know the book has been made engaging enough for him to interact with it by putting these other modalities on top so he can get there.

28:53 Yeah. Once he can do that again and again and again it becomes familiar enough to him that he can start to predict what's going to happen next. And

29:01 then you know you can take away the crutches. You know it's like putting kind of bells on something to to make it more attractive. And then once I get used to paying attention to it, then you can get away with the bells and they can do that. So that's really really great.

29:11 I mean generally I think there's another actually quite interesting. It was making me think when you were talking about it about I often talk to presented to earliest practitioners about with

29:19 children with profound autism. So non-verbal um children with autism they um they it's the same thing with

29:27 prediction. So, I was saying, you know, when stuff's very fast-paced and we struggle to predict, and that's also true with interpersonal interactions and

29:35 a lot of children with autism kind of struggle to predict how someone's going to react before they react. And one of the really nice things is they they've done some robots where they they've just

29:42 29 minutes, 42 seconds

got a connect controller, you know, that motion tracker that I don't know if they stopped making them, but um but basically, they just gave these children a robot that exactly copied every movement that you did physically. Yeah.

29:54 And again these children spent thousands and thousands of hours like repeating this to the point where it got predictable. Yeah. Their brains were

30:03 struggling to predict what's going to happen next. But through this repetition and that helped them to make the bridge to other, you know, more complex forms of interaction. So it's exactly what you've been doing with the books. It sounds fantastic.

30:12

Thank you.

30:13 Definitely. So So is that is that a good use of tech do you think for um the

30:22

developing brain? You know what I think what I particularly like about um the augmented reality model

30:29

is that I guess to start off with the child will work with their adult or they'll read the book with their adult.

30:37 So you've got the parental engagement aspect as well which I think is part of the recommendations isn't it for the young?

30:43 Yeah. So that's one area where there is a really strong um evidence base for co- viewing and you know that's for lots of

30:51 reasons. firstly, because it allows it to be more child le certainly in the context of a book. So, so reading a book together is a really nice way where you

31:00 can be quite child-led. So, it's not so much when you're reading a book to a child, it's not so much, you know, you sit and read it and the child has got to keep quiet and listen. Yeah. Which is basically the model with screen content

31:09 that the screen content just happens and the child has to keep up. Yeah. Books are much more child-led in that, you know, how whether you go forward or back or how long you spend on a particular

31:17 31 minutes, 17 seconds

page is dependent on lots of different cues for the children. So, so that's great and that's that's one thing that's great about what you're doing Pamela.

31:25

Um, in terms of the evidence for co-viewing on screens generally, um, I just was having a

31:33

I was just we're just testing some putting together some guidance on N to twos which is going to be it's kind of like a early years um, coalition. So all

31:41

the different earliest partners were there and we were just having a debate today about we're putting some stuff about co-viewing with N to twos is okay because it gives them a chance to

31:50 um uh you know it gives them a chance to talk about what they've been watching.

31:54 So you can be you putting verbal labels onto what they've been watching and that type of stuff. Um so the evidence on co viewing with screens is different. It's

32:02 more about the language using it as a stir as a stimulus to language.

32:06 But with books it's more about being child led.

32:09 Absolutely. Yeah, I think just just going back to the guidelines um for a minute, Sam, we've got um really

32:17 different devices. When we talk about screens and screens for under-fives and under twos, I think it's worth um identifying what we mean by screens. I

32:25 mean, we've got television screens, we've got lap um iPad screens, and then phone screens. And then within those

32:32 screens, we've got also different types of content. So can you just break that down for us a little bit in terms of the

32:40 guidelines because it's not the same kind of content.

32:44 No. And yeah, so the content is particularly important. So know what I've been saying, you know, particularly

32:53 important is this idea of know when stuff is just happening too fast at a rate that my brain can't keep up with.

32:58

Yeah. Um and that is, you know, true for some forms of um TV, but it's not true.

33:06 true for some forms of kind of video content, but it's not true for others.

33:08 Yeah. So, no, good CBBS, you know, particularly the older CBBS, things like in the Night Garden is really really

33:16 slow paced. Yeah. To a point where it's quite aversive to watch as an adult, but again, it's done off this and it was the same person who did Teletubbies who did

33:24 Night Garden and it's done off this real intuitive feel of what the world feels like to a young kid.

33:28 Yeah. Um, so the slow-paced stuff is fine and and and I pushed really hard and it's actually quite strongly represented in the in the guidance that you know

33:37 fast-paced stuff best to avoid kind of slow-paced kind of predictable stuff is is is best to um kind of watch and and if you think what they're seeing when

33:45 they're doing FaceTime Yeah. Um uh then um uh you know that's just a face interacting with them. So, if I can

33:54 predict what a face is going to do when I'm interacting with it live, then it's not a different thing to looking at, you know, doing FaceTime or kind of video calling. So, that's a very different

34:01 type of thing. Um, as I mentioned, kind of um games are different in terms of how your brain's reacting. It's not just passive. It's much more interactive,

34:09. which is good. But I think actually, funny enough, Susie, because the on different types of device, it's actually quite different things. So obviously

34:18 know since iPhones and iPads in 2009 2010 there's been a massive increase particularly in early years screen use

34:25 for obvious reasons you know you're in a queue at a shop or you're waiting for your food to come at a restaurant and you know you've got three-year-olds and you know you just want a minute silence

34:33 so you put out your phone and put Peppa Pig in and then you can have a glass of wine chat chat to your friends. Um so there have been massive increases in the

34:41 amount of screen use um since that came out just for the ubiquity of screens.

34:45 But one of the things I think is no not so widely recognized is this idea of kind of passive screen use. So we think about this a lot at home because I've

34:54 been working on this guidance for a few months now and um in the evenings I like to sit and watch the football with my wife. We just kind of sit and have it on and have a nice chat um about our days

35:03

um as a football's on. We've got a six-month old baby and it's virtually impossible to position a six-month old baby in a room where you've got a TV on

35:11

showing a football with her not being able to see the screen. And the minute she can see it, she just glues on it because of this mechanism I said of

35:19

watch you follow the movement. We have tracking the ball.

35:22

Yeah, you're tracking the You have a hardwired thing just to follow the movement. Yeah. So, but even if I have her like on my lap facing towards me, she'll look like this over the top of

35:30

her head. So we've been thinking about it and and this this research into passive TV in the background consumption

35:38

is much much much less um it all most of the research on screens is you know the child is sitting you know watching it primarily but I think there's some

35:47

35 minutes, 47 seconds

really really important stuff to do but that's more of a problem with you know wall-mounted TVs because obviously an iPad's much smaller so if I'm watching

35:55

it my baby's less likely to catch it in the in the line of sight so so there are a lot of kind of differences between different typ types of content, but as I

36:02

say, the main one is the what are they viewing on the screen? You know, the screens are the medium, not the message. Um, it's not about screens themselves.

36:09

It's about how they're using the screens. And there are certain ways of using screens which I'd say are really good for children's development. Um, and there are other ways which I'd say I

36:17

certainly wouldn't be keen for my kids to do.

36:19

Absolutely. So, we've got um many diverse brain types as we know. And we've already mentioned uh autism and ADHD and these different diverse brain

36:28

types process information differently and in some cases tech or edtech education technology is a really

36:35

powerful learning tool for younger learners who may be ADHD or dyslexic or

36:42

any of the other neuro types. So are we okay with that? And does the screen use

36:49

preclude those groups of children or is it for is it a universal guideline?

36:55

Um so it it's very much um something

37:02

that is I think you're absolutely right Susie that there are a lot of benefits um particularly and and this was something that came through very

37:09

strongly in a consultation. There are a lot of benefits um for children with send um that they get from screens. two

37:17 in particular this idea of kind of repetition. So I was saying that you know naturally our brains are wired to seek out predictability. Um but then at

37:25

the the at the rate so early on we need repetition because we don't have so much prior experience. So everything's more novel so we need to repeat stuff and

37:33

then as we get more experienced and we can predict something then it stops triggering so much learning so it gets boring. So we seek out something new. So

37:40 that's all run by dopamine release like curiosity-based learning from dopamine release. But obviously the rate at which our brains are learning um and the rate at which things are getting too

37:48

predictable and we seek out something different varies a lot from child to child. Yeah. And so this idea so some children will stay much longer uh you

37:56 know in this kind of phase of needing a lot of repetition than others. Yeah.

38:00 

Every child um you know go there's differences between every child and that's something obviously that tech's very good for and I can you know watch

38:07 the same video over and over again if that's what I need for where I am at my learning journey. Um and know certainly for the point of view of know a teacher

38:16

teaching phonics with iPads in a classroom what what's really great is that you know everything is all the learning is best off contingency. Yeah.

38:24 So I can I can I get feedback um and then um if I've got the answer right I go on to a new question. If I haven't got it wrong right then I consolidate and I repeat more more at that level.

38:34 Yeah. So all all teaching is you know what is a level that is the is my class.

38:39 But if I've just got one teacher and 30 kids, then I need to pitch that level of difficulty at the average level for all of the 30 kids. Yeah. And one of the

38:47 things that's great about tech um is that I can have 30 kids doing a phonics app on their iPad at once and that level

38:54 of difficulty of the task that they're being presented with is individually calibrated for that individual child.

38:59 Yeah. So that's something that tech is great for. This idea that I can, you know, get a lot of feedback is very contingent. It's very child-led. I'm

39:06 constantly monitoring where the child's at on their learning journey and I'm giving stuff that's exactly right for their difficulty level. Um so that's you

39:14 know a massive potential. So so those are two areas I'd say where um you know children with um uh kind of different forms of neurode divergence can benefit

39:22  from tech. Yeah. Kind of children who needing different levels of repetition and that you know tailoring learning to to different speeds. And there's another

39:30 thing you know obviously you know there's a lot of discussion there's a great book neurotribes about kind of tech and autism

39:38

and that is also talking about the fact that you know as I was mentioning a lot of people with autism find interpersonal interactions particularly hard and they trying to guess how a person's going to

39:47 kind of respond in a given situation and obviously one of the nice things about kind of tech is that it's more systematizable so you know some like

39:54

really really really smart people with autism can work out like a complex technological system and they can work out exactly how a system's going to

40:02

react at a given time, but they they kind of find it hard to harder to predict how a person's going to react.

40:07

So, you're letting people spend time in the situations that where their brains can predict what's going to happen next where they do, you know, amazing things.

40:15 So, so yeah, lots of benefits.

40:17

Yeah, definitely. So, in summary, um do you know, have you got any feedback on how the guidelines have been received by

40:24

parent carers and what's what's next? I mean, how do we enforce measure

40:31

the impact of these recommendations and you know, are we looking at preventing some potentially adverse mental health impacts for example?

40:43

Yeah. So, so I'll answer the last question first. So it's very hard to be sure and we've talked about this a lot

40:52

when we were putting together the guidance but the as I say we're in a situation where know we know that screen

41:00

content fast-paced unpredictable screen content has this effect on our overall levels of uh kind of arousal um and

41:07 alertness. Um um and we have a lot of really good quality evidence that kind of these things kind of correlate with uh you know behavioral dysregulation and then long-term kind of mental health.

41:18

And we've got some causal evidence. So we've shown you know you can get you can do some kind of animal models where you can randomly assign one group to receive

41:25

you know high intensity kind of visual stimulation and high another not. Um and that's kind of consistent with this

41:33

model that the high intensity visual stimulation like affects our brain stem function which kind of has associations with you know anxiety like behaviours

41:40 later on. Um so I think this is something that we need to think about the the one tricky area where you know I'm being really

41:48

frank and saying I just don't know what the picture is at the moment is uh you know why is it that we're seeking out these situations if they don't feel nice

41:56

why do we seek them out? Yeah. Um um so that's one thing that we do but the other thing is more of a regulatory thing which is so as I mentioned earlier

42:03

there's been this quite marked shift um um in the past you know 20 years towards faster paced

42:11

content. Yeah. In fact, it's it's been happening since we started making um movies. Um so there stuff going back to the 1920s very first movies we ever

42:19

made. If you look at things like cutting speed um and just the rate of change of stuff happening on screen is getting faster and faster over time. Yeah. 

42:27

and one of the reasons we think this is happening is because we have, as I mentioned earlier, this hardwired tendency to pay attention to movement

42:34

anywhere we can see it. Um, and what the makers of screen content are doing is they're increasingly realizing that if I

42:42

42 minutes, 42 seconds

tap into this, you know, hardwired low down brain mechanism, then everybody watches it. Yeah. It doesn't matter if I don't understand it, everybody watches

42:49

it all the time. Yeah. Whereas this kind of comprehension understanding driven engagement which is what you know Pamela was talking about earlier which is what

42:56 you get with books. Yeah. You get it too with slowpaced TV. Yeah. So something like in the night garden. Yeah. There's a lot of the time there's hardly any movement to draw your attention. Yeah.

43:06

It's only when I've watched a few episodes and I understand what's happening and I'm interested and I recognize the characters that I want to pay attention to it. Yeah. So for this

43:15

kind of slow paced the stuff that we think is good for the brain. Yeah. the slow pace screen content. Yeah. You have this bump at the first time I watch it,

43:23

I'm just like, what is that? And then only when you get to know it and talk about it with someone that you get interested in it. Yeah. Whereas with the fast-paced, look at me, look at me,

43:30

there's movement, movement. Yeah. That works straight away. Yeah. So when you see it that way, you can understand why the makers of screen content are, you

43:37

know, moving more towards this fast-paced look at me, look at me stuff.

43:40

Yeah. But it's also, you know, we're pretty sure now it's not what children need, particularly very young children.

43:46

Yeah. So for me the next question is how do we legislate this? Yeah, this is partly about you know parental advisory

43:55

um and you know there is advice and a guidance about how to tell good quality content from less good quality content.

44:00 Yeah, but it's also I think a legislative thing that you know and it sorry it's partly also communicating with the makers of screen content. So we're doing lots of that you know

44:08

talking about this this is why you find it works but you know this is also why uh you know we think it's not great for young children's brains. But if there's

44:16

any way and this is the one we haven't been able to come up with like any way we can you know legislate for this.

44:21

Yeah. So how how do we make it that you know we're protecting you know in the same way that you know there's a lot of legislation about foods you know stuff

44:29

that we know is harmful for us we're not allowed to put into food. Yeah. So is there any way that we can do the same type of stuff with this you know

44:36

fast-paced kind of screen content that that we think you know we've got pretty good evidence now is you know not good for young children's brains.

44:42

Yes. It it does seem like we've it's taken a long time to get to this point and to get to the research and I think as parents we've kind of known

44:51

instinctively like you were saying Pamela you you were convinced you're going to be that you weren't going to be that parent that would give your kids an

44:58

iPad o the journey on the motorway um you know my mother I think I'm a bit older than you but my mother would say

45:06

look out of the window and count the number of red cars that was my level of entertainment And also, I also think that while I'm doing

45:14

the these podcasts, I need to be um putting on makeup, putting on uh you know, doing something crazy with my hair

45:21

because talking to the camera doesn't seem to be enough. You know, you also have to do other things as well to get people's attention. I don't know if you

45:29

if you've watched any Tik Tok, but it it it is as fast as it gets. I mean, literally, there are colors, there's music, there's sound, there's constant

45:36

movement, there's constant talking, and it actually gives me a headache. I mean, I I just find it very unpleasant and kind of slightly nauseating, not

45:45

physically nauseating, but clearly loads of loads of kids, I mean, in in secondary schools, if you're not on

45:53

TikTok in in year seven, you know, what's wrong with you?

45:57

Yeah. So, I think what whatever we're doing now to kind of um start with the next generation in terms of you know

46:04

thinking about how they are learning how they are um adapt their brains are changing their desirous of more stimulus

46:13

um and we need to kind of arrest that process. It feels like a whole generation has already, you know, gone

46:20

through that that exposure of of, you know, that that speed and that kind of frantic, highly aroused, highly um

46:28

stimulated. Um, so in a way, it's a bit late for that generation, but we we we know we're all managing that as best we

46:35

can. Um but I I do I do I do think um I do I personally think it's it's

46:43

important uh to have this research and it's important to have these conversations and try and understand

46:50

well I think for parents perhaps need more information you know the stuff we discussed today it's not

46:59

just a banning thing you know no screens under twos only an hour for under-fives It's because it will damage their ability to learn, they may struggle to concentrate when they go into school they may find it hard to follow instructions, it may be more difficult to identify those children who are 

47:07

ability to learn. They may struggle to concentrate when they go into school.

47:11

They may find it hard to follow instructions. It may be more difficult to identify those children who are neurodivergent, for example, from the

47:20

general population because everyone is completely um having the same presentations. You know, it might be

47:28

might take longer to identify. So I think I I welcome the research and I'm very interested to see how it's going to be rolled out and what comes next as a parent and a practitioner and I and I'm

sure you are as well Pamela with your augmented reality books. 

Um so thank you so much for your time both of you really appreciate it and um I will share the links once it's uh out and all of your information and links to the research will be in there as well.

48:01

And uh thank you very much for joining the energy in motion. How are you both feeling now? What's your energy level now, Sam?

48:08

Great. Lovely. My kids, I'm about to go and jump the top of my kids for you. I'm feeling that was great. Nice chat. Um really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks, Susie.

48:16

Thanks for having me.

48:17

Okay, take care. See you, Pamela. See you, Sam. Thank you. Bye. Bye.