Misuse of smartphones is simply a immense risk. Expert: The child's brain is not ready for this

The usage of smartphones by children is simply a hazard of developmental disorders, said Dr. Mariusz Zbigniew Jędrzejko in a conversation with PAP. Pedagog emphasized that loving and caring parents must defend their offspring from regular surviving in the digital world. Their evolving minds are not adapted to specified technology.

Prof. Zbigniew Jędrzejko spoke to the Polish Belt Agency about the hazard of allowing children to contact technology. Regulations would counter the abuse of electronic devices by the youngest. – It is known, among another things, that by the end of the 3rd year of life the brain is incapable to receive large news waves and waves of images. This computer is inactive besides slow for that due to the fact that the frontal lobes of the brain, liable for abstract and cognitive thinking, are incapable to process this amount of information, they cannot organize it – explained the scholar.

– These youngest children should absorb information from the real environment, as we are inactive dealing with a circumstantial feature of the screens emitting the image, sound and blue light, which is associated with the stimulation of the dopaminergic system. In a nutshell: a tiny kid watching videos played on specified a device, although he does not realize what they are about, experiences the stimulation of this system, and then there is simply quite a few pleasance – He warned the teacher. – The problem is that the child's brain, if frequently so stimulated, gets utilized to this pleasance very rapidly and starts to treat the feeling of pleasance as a natural state – he added.

Risks to the improvement of the kid resulting from this phenomenon, Dr. Jędrzejko illustrated an example from his own logotherapist practice [one of the methods of psychotherapy, based on the perception of disorders as a consequence of a failure of sense of deeper meaning—ed.]. The student warned that children who abuse technology could end up like his four-year-old patient:

– His mother, before he was 1 year old, gave him the chance to watch fairy tales on his smartphone, which had the effect that erstwhile he was 1.5 years old he would refuse to eat if he could not watch fairy tales during a meal, and erstwhile he was 2.5 years old he would only fall asleep erstwhile watching fairy tales, with the viewing time being about 3 hours before the baby fell asleep. This is not a joke. In addition, even after the boy had fallen asleep, the fairy tales inactive had to “walk”, otherwise he would wake up – the therapist reported.

– erstwhile Charles became my patient, the first thing I did was turn off my smartphone and admit that I've never met a kid so screaming in my long life. For respective hours, he would scream, scream, as if he had been peeled from his skin; he would grunt, for he was no longer strong, he was hoarse. We needed 4 days to stabilize this mediocre child. His brain, his full self, screamed for dopamine— He added.

As the investigator stressed, akin experiences are "an appeal for the carefulness of the rulers, erstwhile so many parents cry for aid as a consequence of their reckless steps and neglect to cope with it" and an crucial lesson regarding the contact of young people with digital devices.

– Children should not be in contact with any screen devices until about the end of their 3rd year of life, should not see any content presented through them. Not due to the fact that they are bad, just due to the fact that the cognitive and emotional abilities of these children are besides small. It is only from the age of 4 that long neural networks begin to form in the brain, which are liable for many mechanisms – combining information, exchanging information, collecting and rationalizing it. This process continues many years, almost to a young adult – he explained.

– It is between the age of 4 and six that very dynamic brain improvement takes place, but this young brain inactive does not have "great power". (...) A kid of this age is good to read, to hear long sentences, to be acquainted with them, to analyse long thoughts, to learn fresh terms, and to apply them – it is not in cartoons. During this time the kid can watch movie fairy tales with beautiful morals, after all, we know them well: e.g. “Rexio”, “The Enchanted Pen”, “The May Bee”, but not “the Pokemons” – he added.

– Screen devices, especially smartphones, give short messages, there are no elaborate sentences or reflective thoughts. There are only “shorts” and then the brain immediately enters “short reactions”, therefore, fed by short videos children do not respond with full sentences, they are limited to their equivalents and grunts like aha, no, yey. Not due to the fact that they're bad, just due to the fact that they're mentally stupid, lacking the ability to make more complex sentences, incapable to construct the first complicated thoughts and analyses – the student was signing.

Many adults have noted that they do not realize these crucial facts and that they do not see the disastrous effects of utilizing their children with electronic devices. This makes the practice of buying “smartphone” for the first Holy Communion to children alive. Let us abandon this trend and give the children technology later – erstwhile they are ready for it, encouraged the researcher.

(PAP)/work. FA