How should parents handle technology at home? This is Jim Denison's daily article for Wednesday, December 12th, 2018.

The National Institutes of Health has been studying the effective screen time for children. The preliminary results are in, and they're not good.

The NIH report shows that nine and 10-year-old children who spend more than two hours in front of a screen each day score lower on thinking and language tests. This is troubling since the average tweenager spends up to six

hours a day on their tablet or phone. In addition, scientists have found that children

with daily screen usage of more than seven hours show premature thinning of the brain cortex.

This is the outermost layer that processes information from the physical world.

While it's too soon to know with certainty that screen time usage caused the changes to the children's brains,

scientists will be monitoring this relationship carefully.

The NIH report is just one example of the growing effect of technology on our children.

Another study related smartphone used by children to sleep deprivation

and other problems associated with poor attention spans. This is alarming since two-thirds

of children take their smartphones to bed with them. One group of scientists found that

the more time four-year-olds spent interacting with media, the shorter their sleep was at ages

four and six. A study published by Harvard Medical School has shown that blue-tinged light, emitted devices such as smartphones and tablets suppresses the production of melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone vital to good sleep.

Counselors warn that digital addiction is a growing problem.

The compulsion to continue playing video games or using technology is escalating.

China has identified internet addiction as one of its main public health

risks. In some parts of Asia, digital addiction rates may be as high as 26%. Among American children

between the ages of 8 and 18, around 8% could already be classified as addicted. A 2010 study

found that children in this age group spend more than seven hours a day consuming media.

Experts warn that victims of digital addiction can experience, quote, destructive dependence,

extreme change of personality, isolation, and physical signs during withdrawal, end quote.

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