If we look around a classroom today, it can be difficult to find a child who does not have a smartphone in the pocket. However, throughout the world the debate is open about the convenience of minors have free access to these devices.
He Daily Mail has published a report on this topic gathering the opinions of experts such as psychologists, teachers and cybersecurity experts.
The teacher Liane AzevedoProfessor of Public Health at the School of Sport and Physical Activity at Sheffield Hallam University, listed reasons not to give your child a smartphone.
“In my opinion, I am concerned that children will replace regular play with toys and other children by using these devices and how this is affecting development of their social and communication skills when playing with other children,” he said.
“There is also concern that by not playing there, motor development will also be affected“he added.
Current research suggests that Six years old can be a critical point for child development, before which it may not be advisable to give the child any type of interactive media.
Up to age six, children are still developing critical motor and interpersonal skills that They are best learned through face-to-face interaction.
Additionally, studies have found that the amount of gray matter, or brain cells, appears to peak just before age six. For this reason, the Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS) recommends that children under two years old should not spend any time in front of a screen and that children under five years old should spend less than one hour a day.
“There is some evidence, although still a bit contradictory, that smartphone use could negatively affect social-emotional skills and self-regulation of children,” adds Azevedo.
A study published in 2022 in Psychological Act based on research with Thai children aged two to five found that children who spent more time on smartphones had worse motor skills.
Likewise, an investigation of the Cambridge University found that extensive smartphone use in children was associated with greater impulsivity and cognitive inflexibility.
Azevedo notes that research has found that children under six years old may be particularly sensitive to the sleep-disrupting effects of smart phones.
The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gateshas said that he would not allow his children to have a smartphone until they are 14, when their brains are more developed.
However, there are also some indications that early exposure to smartphones may also affect children’s mental health later in life due to greater exposure to social media.
A group study Sapien Labs found that the later a child receives their first phone, the better their mental health will be as an adult.
On the contrary, the study states that the younger a child is when he receives his first phone, the more likely he is to experience suicidal thoughts later in life.
The outstanding thinker Jonathan Haidt has recently made claims about the impact of smartphones on mental health the centerpiece of its argument for limiting children’s access to phones.
However, the connection between mental health and smartphone use is much less clear what Haidt and other activists insist.
The teacher Candice Odgersprofessor of psychology and computer science at the University of California, Irvine, says, “The science to date does not support the widespread panic around social media and mental health.”
Odgers explains that approximately 90% of the studies linking social media to mental health are correlational, meaning that they can’t prove that the use of smartphones or social networks causes poor mental health.
Likewise, a 2023 report from the National Academies of Sciences expert committee concluded: “The available research linking social media to health shows small effects and weak associations, which may be influenced by a combination of good and bad experiences.
Thus, a study published in 2022 by Stamford Medicine no connection found between the age children got their first phone with sleep patterns, grades, or symptoms of depression.
Although most previous studies have analyzed a large group of students at a time, This study followed 250 children for five years.
At the end of the study period, the researchers found no significant association between well-being and when they received their phones. In fact, current research shows that the way parents use their cell phones could be much more important.
The same Thai study that reported a connection between phone use and poor motor development also found that the more time parents spent on their phones, The children spent more time with their loved ones.
Teacher Liane Azevedo says early years teachers now say they are more worried by the time parents spend on their phones.
“They are concerned about children’s use, but they are also very concerned about excessive use of smartphones by parents and How does this affect your interaction with the child?he continues.
“They realized that children come to daycare with a speech delay and not many children are ready for school,” she says. Professors who have worked with Professor Avazedo’s study say that this “reflects a lack or poor interaction between parents and children due to distractions from cell phones.” All of this means that deciding when to give your child a cell phone is a more complicated issue than it seems at first glance.
While giving a child their first phone before age six can increase the risks of developmental problems, studies have found that watching TV actually It has a much greater negative effect.
Of course, using smartphones from a young age or being overly exposed to social media can still have impacts. deeply negative.
What matters most is the maturity of your child and how they are introduced to smartphones. If the phones lead them to access harmful online content or distract them from interacting with their parents and peers, then giving a child a smartphone would be a bad idea.
