Meta-studies for Advice on Pediatric Screen Use?
Meta-studies for Advice on Pediatric Screen Use?
Note to Self - A Child is Not a Data Point, and Never Was
Image of child with picture books by Катерина Кучеренко from Pixabay
Until we look at all of the downstream effects of feeding the body the wrong kind of light, we will be asking the wrong questions regarding screens from the wrong experts, - for both children and ourselves.
We are in the very early stages of the equivalent of the lower-tar-and-nicotine cigarettes misadventure, and incrementalism.
Contradictory Advice?
On August 23, the platform Inc.com published an article by Jessica Stillman Child Development Experts Reviewed More Than 100 Studies on Screens and Kids. Here Are Their 4 Practical Takeaways for Parents | Inc.com Parents are bombarded by contradictory advice on kids and screens. A huge new study cuts through the noise.
Did it cut through ‘the noise’?
Jessica writes, “Why getting definitive advice about kids and screens is so hard” - While a gazillion articles and books with titles like "Have smartphones ruined a generation?" and The Anxious Generation are just a Google away, the experts who write them can't seem to agree on practical advice for parents.
Should you forbid social media before 16 as suggested by NYU psychologist and Anxious Generation author Jonathan Haidt? Or listen to the studies and experts who say taking too active a role in managing your kid's screen time deprives them of the opportunity to learn to manage it themselves?
This confusion is not entirely the experts' fault. As Emily Oster, an economist known for translating complicated research into practical advice for parents, has explained, it is ethically and logistically impossible to design a study that randomly assigns some kids to eight hours a day of TikTok and YouTube and compares them to kids who are forced to go tech-free.”
Justifying ‘Benefits’ of Early Childhood Screen Use?
Inc.com’s article was referencing the paper published August 5th by JAMA Pediatrics; Early Childhood Screen Use Contexts and Cognitive and Psychosocial Outcomes A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
“Of 7441 records located for screening, 226 full-text articles were reviewed. A final sample of 100 studies comprising 176 742 participants who met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Of these, 64 were included in meta-analyses.”
Hum.
Read carefully: JAMA’s article concluded, “This systematic review and meta-analysis indicates that in children younger than 6 years, program viewing and background TV exposure were associated with poorer cognitive outcomes, and program viewing, age-inappropriate content, and caregiver screen use during child routines were associated with poorer psychosocial outcomes.
Co-use was positively associated with cognitive outcomes. Future research should further evaluate elements within those contexts that may be associated with children’s development (eg, what elements of co-use interactions may be beneficial beyond coviewing?) The consideration of a broad scope of screen use contexts and outcomes presents new opportunities and actionable targets for intervention and public health messaging.”
Jessica reported, " ‘The studies we analyzed show that if children and caregivers use screens together (also called co-viewing or co-use), it is beneficial for children's thinking and reasoning skills. It is especially beneficial for their language development,’ the study co-authors report in The Conversation.”
Compared to what?
From the Meta-Analysis
“Benefits of co-use for cognitive development were identified in the present review, extending on previous positive findings regarding language13 and literacy.87 In addition to co-use promoting interactions98 and vocabulary development,13 co-use also creates learning opportunities for cognitive skills via caregiver scaffolding. Advantages of co-use are likely dependent on the extent of parent-child interactions and discussions about content.98,99 For instance, questions about the content (eg, what if and why), explanations and connections to the child’s experience possibly support development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills in young children. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge that the co-use evidence base has focused largely on television coviewing. Co-use on handheld mobile devices, as well as the extent of co-use interactions that may be beneficial for children’s development, need further investigation. Collectively, our findings support the need for a more nuanced approach beyond screen time limits by providing consistent underlying principles that families may use to make informed evidence-based decisions, to encourage healthy digital media use.4 The meta-analytic evidence supports American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations10 for parent-child coviewing and discouraging age-inappropriate content as well as background TV exposure, while also introducing novel recommendations, such as encouraging intentional and productive viewing while discouraging caregiver screen use during interactions and routines with children.
Jessica Stillman’s summary article outlines four suggestions for parents:
1. Watch together.
2. Choose age-appropriate content.
3. Don't let screens come between you and your child.
4. Don't leave the TV on in the background.
If parents and society were only concerned with mental functions including temporary language and literacy and vocabulary development, these ‘studies’ and this data interpretation about screen use might be informative.
But healthy child development is more nuanced than intellectual ‘headspace.’
“Managing Your Kid's Screen Time Deprives Them Of The Opportunity To Learn To Manage It Themselves?” - NOT
In her article, Jessica notes “Most advice out there is based on limited or faulty data, driven by panic, or hotly disputed. But a recent review of more than 100 studies offers parents at least a few data-backed recommendations to stand on. “
(The sentence hyperlinks to another article by the same author Calm Down, Parents: A Rigorous New Oxford Study of 350,000 Teens Shows Screen Time Is About as Dangerous as Potatoes The panic over kids and screen time is wildly overblown, according to the most rigorous study to date. She is referring to the Oxford report published in Nature/Human Behavior The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use which implies that correlation is not causality, regarding risks to children. “The association we find between digital technology use and adolescent well-being is negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. Taking the broader context of the data into account suggests that these effects are too small to warrant policy change.”)
Many Parents Are Not Buying It
Growing numbers of informed and aware parents are not ‘confused’ about the choice between action and “fear of becoming too involved,” and not waiting for more expert advice or debate, for children of all ages.
Attention to the growing number of issues has exploded, in no small part coinciding with work by John Haidt and his colleagues, as well as the momentum of parents that reached critical mass in the U.K. about harm being experienced by children - associated with screens, currently focusing on social media harms and cellphone policies for schools.
(This is John Haidt’s response regarding the Oxford study quoted above that attempted the throw shade on his work: Yes, Social Media Really Is a Cause of the Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness, Two major problems with a review in Nature. See also: Why Some Researchers Think I’m Wrong About Social Media and Mental Illness, Six propositions for evaluating the evidence at John’s Substack After Babel.
His Collaborative Review Documents “make it easy for anyone to acquaint themselves with the research literature.”
For more expert opinion, see Big News: The Surgeon General Calls for a Warning Label on Social Media Dr. Murthy is right. The evidence of widespread harm to adolescents is now strong.
Muddled Media Coverage
The Inc.com article about pediatric screen use reported, “Unfortunately, [] there is no definitive one-size-fits-all guidance on this thorny issue. Different families and kids need different things. That makes space for a lot of panic headlines about contradictory studies. These particular guidelines might not be comprehensive, but they are at least both actionable and genuinely science-backed.”
Is the issue ‘panic headlines’ or headlines that liken risks from screens to small potatoes?
Is the issue that research and mainstream media science reporting has deteriorated dramatically, with rampant, pro-industry, ‘decision-based evidence-making’ instead of ‘evidence-based decision-making,’ and little accountability for manufacturing false equivalents and spin?
Can clear insight and common sense prevail over the marketing and propaganda machinery?
What Age for Devices? Note to Self, A Child is Not a Device
Growing numbers of politicians and decision-makers are becoming actively involved for example, opposing cell phone use in schools and Wi-Fi in school buses.
The mainstream media is quoting conflicting recommendations from experts about the appropriate amount (limits) for screen use for children of different ages.
Efforts include identifying the age at which parents should give a child a smart phone.
This mechanistic one-size-fits-all worldview may be causing a great deal of instinct-injured decision-making.
If children were refrigerators, or vacuum cleaners, it might be appropriate for families and for society to abdicate responsibility to experts, and to view the introduction of a screen device as the equivalent of a calendar-based equipment upgrade, without regard to the individual.
It might also be reasonable to continue investing in researching the supposed cognitive benefits of ‘co-watching’ for parents of children under six.
But what if the benefits of ‘pediatric co-watching’ have nothing to do with the fact that the parent and child are watching a screen together? What if the benefits are actually derived from parental proximity, ‘quality time,’ interactive discussion, and shared focus/interest, in spite of the presence of the screen and its downside effects?
What if benefits of eye-hand coordination, language skills, balance, a healthy circadian rhythm, and emotional resiliency are enhanced because parents and communities choose to actively socialize, and play together in joyful, age appropriate, full-bodied ways?
Could society reject current research models and industry influence? Could society experience a quantum leap in its ability to adjust course?
Some Additional Thoughts About Reclaiming Grace for Children - in the Dark Age of Unbridled Tech
1. Pixels vs. Books and Vision
A screen is not a painting, nor is it processed in the same way that we view color observed in nature, (which is what our eyes are designed for). Screens are composed of tiny pixels of color and light that the brain (and eyes) must synthesize, unnaturally, under stress.
Geeks to geeks explains: A pixel, short for “picture element,” is the smallest unit of a digital image or display that can be controlled or manipulated. Pixels are the smallest fragments of a digital photo. Pixels are tiny square or rectangular elements that make up the images we see on screens, from smartphones to televisions. Every pixel in the image is marked by its coordinates and contains information about color and brightness or sometimes opacity level has a place for each and all pixels.
Do pixels impose an inharmonious demand on human sensory and processing capacities?
Does screen use alter the ability of the organism to monitor the inner and outer environment in a healthy and appropriate manner, as the result of the stress on the organism?
Ask every driver waiting at a green light behind the driver who is texting.
In the article What Is Computer Vision Syndrome? WebMD explains, “Eye problems caused by computer use fall under the heading computer vision syndrome (CVS). It isn’t one specific problem. Instead, it includes a whole range of eye strain and discomfort. Research shows that between 50% and 90% of people who work at a computer screen have at least some symptoms. Working adults aren't the only ones affected. Kids who stare at tablets or use computers during the day at school can have issues, too, especially if the lighting and their posture are less than ideal.” There's no proof that computer use causes any long-term damage to the eyes. But regular use can lead to eye strain and discomfort. You may notice: Blurred vision; Double vision; Dry, red eyes; Eye irritation; Headaches; Neck or back pain.”
While adults experience symptoms, child often display behavioral issues.
We do not know the long-term effects of the demand of pixels on physiology, but we do know that cell phone use is connected with rising rates of childhood myopia, which is one reason why China banned cell phone in schools in 2021.
“In myopia, the eyeball develops at a faster-than-normal rate and becomes too long, which causes distance vision to become blurry. While blurred vision can be corrected with glasses or contact lenses, once myopia sets in, it's irreversible. [] the big concern with developing myopia is that it can increase the lifetime risk of developing a severe eye condition like glaucoma, retinal detachment, cataract and myopic macular degeneration, which may eventually lead to blindness in some cases. [] Even in the short term, Prof. Jalbert says screens can cause strain to our eyes and induce symptoms of dry and tired eyes relatively quickly. A recent study by Prof. Jalbert found that viewing a phone screen can reduce blinking rates within the first minute in children and result in symptoms of dry eye.” - Medical Express: Is too much screen time bad for our eyes?
A change in the blinking rate also indicates a yet-unexamined change in processing and brain function. We also know that flashes of light activate the back brain, which is very different from reading a book or being out in nature.
In addition, the internet is rife with poorly designed, unhealthy color combinations, for example, white or fluorescent text on a black background, which invokes night vision and creates an after-shadow. (This is the reason why we now have green chalkboards instead of blackboards in schools.) From an energy medicine/Chinese medicine perspective, the demand to transition between conflicting color schemes (shifting between a black chalkboard with white ink vs. with white paper with black ink) stresses the Kidney energy field, including the adrenals.
Our understanding of the systemic complexities of light and biology is in its infancy.
For example, Wikipedia reports. “in 1997, over 600 children in Japan were hospitalized after experiencing photosensitive epileptic seizures while watching Pokemon. “some of the viewers experienced blurred vision, headaches, dizziness and nausea.[1][7][9] Some suffered seizures, blindness, convulsions and unconsciousness.[1][7] Japan's Fire Defense Agency reported that 685 viewers – 310 boys and 375 girls – were taken to hospitals by ambulances.[7][10] Although many victims recovered during the ambulance trip, more than 150 were admitted to hospitals.[7][10] Two were hospitalized for more than two weeks.[10] The Japanese press referred to this incident as "Pokémon Shock" (ポケモンショック, Pokémon Shokku).[11]”
Before the body’s resiliency is overcome to this extent by inappropriate stimuli, there is a range of mal-adaptive compensation occurring, in both children and adults.
Screen entrainment entails quantifiable alterations in biochemistry and physiological function.
Accumulated expertise about eye care and vision has not been incorporated in the World Wide Web.
We are currently involved in a grand experiment with artificial light, with many participants who are non-benefitting and non-consensual, not only limited to children, but across all age ranges, from tantrums in toddlers to drivers blinded by poorly designed headlights.
Because the industry and its partners and regulators have not been responsive, the responsibility has fallen to consumers to protect their families and loved ones. This requires becoming very discerning regarding assumptions about appropriate design and use, about sustainability, and about safety. For everyone.
Society can experience a quantum leap in its ability to adjust course. It is everyone’s birthright to be part of a renaissance.
2. Reclaiming Right Timing; ‘The Eyes are a Clock,’
Chronobiology which encompasses complexities of light and biology, is a very new field in the West.
About 100 years ago, Anthroposophy founder Rudolf Steiner spoke of the need to continuously reharmonize the eyes with the cosmos and the change of season by walking outside at dawn and dusk.
In communities across the country, families from India can be seen walking outside together at sunset.
Many Indian parents also massage their children with healing oils daily, according to the child’s constitution and the season, offering the protection of presence and healing touch, while cultivating relaxation and triggering the release of the body’s loving, giving, bonding, and longevity hormone oxytocin.
The practice reportedly directly helps protect the resiliency of the auric field, skin, and nervous system. (Learn more here.)
This integrated knowledge of herbs, oils, loving healing touch, combined with seasonal approaches to health, and recognition of the child’s constitutional ‘type’ has been passed down through generations, and endures as an intellectual and spiritual inheritance in many Eastern and European countries.
Until the benefits of informed self-care and healthy familial healing practices that sustain and protect the body’s protective electromagnetic energies are compared with the supposed intellectual benefits of screen use, we may be heading the wrong way down a one-way street.
Re-claiming the ability to harmonize our inborn chronobiology with the cosmic current via natural law provides a new framework for evaluating, decreasing, and ultimately rejecting screen time for the youngest developing children.
(I would wager that recovering these practices will do more to ‘preserve humanity’s light of consciousness’ than any promised tech-based settlement on Mars, and that societal resources should come back down to Earth.)
(Learn more: The Circadian Classroom and the Power Couple Why obesity starts in the eye, Our eyes aren't a camera - they're a clock.)
3. Recognizing Dominance Profiles and Inborn Constitution – All Young Children are Kinesthetic Learners; Whole Body Movement is Crucial
In Education of the Child Anthroposophy founder Rudolf Steiner says “The more living the impression made on eye and ear, the better. Dancing movements in musical rhythm have a powerful influence in building up the physical organs, and this too should not be undervalued.” –Waldorf Library
During early childhood, all children are developing and learning through movement.
(See Carla Hanneford, Smart Moves, Why Learning is Not All In Your Head HERE This book examines the body's role in learning, by reviewing recent scientific insights into the ways that movement initiates and supports mental processes. Part 1 focuses on the brain and physical development, emphasizing the growth of the body/mind capacities with which we learn. It explores three distinct but interconnected kinds of body/mind processing: sensation, emotion, and thought. It also examines the ties that bind body, emotion, and thought together and looks at how movement anchors thought. In part 2, the book discusses the importance of movement and introduces Brain Gym, a coordinated set of integrative movements to enhance learning. Part 3 examines the need to manage stress, nutrition, and other physical requirements of learning. Stress is seen as extremely damaging to learning potential and as the root cause of many of the learning problems seen in people labeled as hyperactive or having attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.)
Historically, we learned what can go horribly wrong both physically and emotionally by studying the lifelong intellectual disabilities of Russian orphans who did not receive appropriate early care and stimulation.
Screen use has overemphasized the visual, the digital, and the intellectual realms on a societal level, at the expense of healthy, fully embodied sensory development and integration.
Children do not have the capacity to recognize and protect themselves from to the resulting imbalances.
Unfortunately, neither has the mass consumer culture, yet. But this is rapidly changing in those paying attention and adjusting course sooner rather than later.
4. Cultivating Addiction in Children to Drive Economic Growth and Enable Surveillance
As Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker explains is his article 10 Reasons Why Technological Progress Is Now Reversing Or How Silicon Valley Started Breaking Bad explains, “Users are not the real customers—so billions of people must suffer to advance the interests of a tiny group of stakeholders. These enormous businesses really do have customers, but they aren’t you and me. Those real customers are mostly corporations who pay either (1) to influence us with ads, or (2) to gain access to private information about us. Anything else they do is just pretense and window-dressing. The system is designed to benefit a tiny number of stakeholders, not the users—and certainly not society or the culture. Real people become inputs in a profit-maximization scheme which requires that they are constantly controlled and manipulated.”
Many parents already recognize their responsibility, to not feed their children to this ‘machine’ - with devices that insidiously take control of biochemistry, including, dopamine, melatonin, and chronobiology, while obliterating privacy.
A society that does not have appropriate guardrails in place to protect young children from addiction is becoming further entrenched in the demand to feed insatiable, hungry ghosts.
5. A Child is Not a Data Point
All young children need touch, play and loving presence. Healthy children respond extremely well to ritualized practices, reverence and repetition.
Don’t allow ‘data’ to misinform.
Even if screens and co-watching offered benefits, the problem with taking advice about how to parent children through developmental stages on the basis of data points and statistics is that children are individuals with unacknowledged individual needs, in the jungle of a mass consumer culture orientation and dirty data.
6. The Elephant in the Nursery Room, Bedroom, Family Room, Playroom, School, School Bus, Office, Car, Park: Keith Cutter: Convenience, Amusement and Stimulation, brought to you by - Synthetic EMF
We not only need to be looking at the effects of screens on children under 6; we need a rethink all screen and artificial light use, relative to physiology. This includes late lessons from early warnings about CFLs, LEDs, blue light, and chronobiology.
This also requires addressing the effects of wireless delivery systems blanketing the environment with radiofrequency radiation, from satellites to cell towers to home Wi-Fi to connected cars.
Keith Cutter’s August 28 article is Beyond Convenience, Amusement, and Stimulation: Mastering Your Mindset to Combat Synthetic EMF Transformative Success Requires Overcoming Social Programming.
“This paper focuses on the mindset required to transition from a life dominated by synthetic EMF exposures to one that genuinely supports health and well-being. Transformational EMF reductions aren't something you can simply buy; they require a deep shift in how you approach your daily life. The key is to critically evaluate and consciously limit the convenience, amusement, and stimulation provided by synthetic EMF technologies, while prioritizing natural and meaningful interactions over harmful exposures.”
Keith noted, “You can break free from the digital gulag by embracing some inconvenience, finding joy in the simple pleasures of the natural world with normal human relations, and stimulating your mind and body through meaningful activities. Despite the challenges and alienation you may face, this journey will lead you to cultivate a life of purpose, growth, and true fulfillment—without harmful levels of synthetic EMF exposure. An abundant life awaits; it doesn't include weaponized forms of convenience, amusement, and stimulation.” - Keith Cutter, EMF Remedy
The mainstream medical model does not yet recognize the function and capabilities of the protective energetic and communication field that surrounds living organisms. It is a critical component of the energetic immune system.
For example, dry eyes, skin rashes, ringing ears, and nerve damage may be directly linked to a collapsed energetic field, - caused by the organism attempting to block the influx of incompatible and inharmonious frequencies by withdrawing the field inward to the body.
We are facing a fork in the road, where we are choosing between holding a young child, reading a book, and/or bathing them in healing warmth and oxytocin, or stressing their biological balance, chronobiology, and brain function while enabling addiction, - by choosing the cell phone or screen’s biological stress and dopamine entrainment instead.
Screens, as currently in widespread use, are a form of inappropriate, mismatched stimulation that ignores and overrides the rest of the body’s healthy, interconnected, synthesizing functions for young children.
We can begin to eclipse their societal-wide risks, by reducing our use, and confronting our unfounded assumptions about health and environmental safety. The industry will respond to consumer pressure
As the late eco-feminist and environmental ethicist Marti Kheel noted, “When you are standing at the edge of a cliff, progress is walking backward. “
“For the time being, each of us has a responsibility to put our own values into practice. Don’t underestimate the cumulative power this represents.” – Ted Gioia
“People have forgotten this truth," the fox said. "But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Don't let screens come between yours and your child’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.