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Too much screen time can have devastating effects on your child’s development. Read on to understand the risks excessive screen time poses for your children and why we discourage it.
1. Screens are Addictive
Whether your child is playing games, using social media, or doing anything involving a screen, they feel instant gratification. With each touch and gesture on the screen, they get an immediate response.
Children old enough to use social media become used to the “like” button, which is a trigger that releases the brain’s pleasure chemical: dopamine. It can become addictive for children.
2. Excessive Screen Time Can Cause Eye Problems
One of the most important reasons we discourage screen time for children is the impact it can have on their health, and particularly on their eyes.
Ophthalmologists predict that the younger generation will struggle with old age-related eye conditions like macular degeneration by their mid-40s. Digital eyestrain because of the amount of blue light emitted from screens can lead to eye problems for your children.
3. Screens Can Affect their Sleep Quality
Not all blue light is harmful. In fact, it is an important part of regulating our sleep cycle. The sun exposes you to a lot more blue light than our screens, which helps our body retain a good sleep cycle.
When your children, or even yourself, are exposed to too much screen time in the evenings and night, the blue light emitted from your screens can offset the sleep cycle. This leads to a wide range of problems, including restless sleep or lack of sleep, daytime tiredness, and poorer academic performance and interest.
4. Screen Time is Also Related to Obesity
Children are spending a lot more time in front of screens today. This can affect their interest in physical activities and developing healthier hobbies. Increased snacking, reduced activity, interrupted sleep cycles, and constantly watching food ads can lead to health issues like obesity. The combination of these factors can cause health issues that are a secondary effect of obesity because it slows down their metabolism.
5. Screen Time Can Also Affect their Mental Health
Children spend so much time on digital devices, especially as they grow older. Therefore, they are likelier to be diagnosed with anxiety and depression than those with reduced screen time, according to a study published in the Preventative Medicine Reports. Children who spend too much time-consuming media may also experience mental development issues.
Children between 4 to 14 have become quite proficient with their use of smartphones, tablets, and other screen-based devices. Children this age now rely on these devices too much as a source of entertainment, and at the same time, gain too much exposure to a lot of different information. When they become so used to the devices and everything that they offer, children become bored very rapidly and start taking little interest in everything else.
When children no longer have anything to excite them, they can fall into depression. Sometimes, children exposed to too much screen time can become very aggressive and angry, they become bored very rapidly, especially those who consume a lot of social media at an early age. With children using screen-based devices for so many things already, moving their education to the screen can become a danger for their future because it can impact their mental health.
Too much screen time has also been associated with significant health-related issues. Children usually assume a bad pose when using devices and tend to slump. Slumping too much at such a young age can lead them to develop a bone spur on their neck that bulges out.
You Can Reduce Your Child’s Screen Time While Studying
It seems that most learning in this day and age has also become digitized, and that is a significant reason that children today are exposed to too much screen time. Math is a subject that particularly requires a lot of time and close attention of many children, and too much screen time stands in the way of them getting better at math.
Fortunately, you can reduce your children’s screen time by reintroducing math learning the way it’s supposed to be done: through fun, engaging, and exciting worksheets that you can print out for them to solve.
Doamago offers a wide range of fun and exciting math exercises that can help you reduce your children’s screen time while studying math and actually enjoying it. Contact us to learn more about how we can help.