ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Watching TV, scrolling social media, playing video games, screens are everywhere.
According to the American Heart Association, kids under 18 are on screens for more than seven hours a day.
But what is all that screen time doing to their brains? Some research suggests that it’s negatively impacting their cognitive development.
“This happens with every new cognitive adjacent technology is that we look at it and say, this is going to somehow disrupt our cognitive abilities, our smarts,” said Anthony Chemero, PhD, Cognitive Science Researcher, University of Cincinnati.
But researchers in Sweden say screens may not be as bad for kids’ brains as previously thought.
In a study where they followed 5,000 kids for up to two years, they found those who played video games for more than one hour increased their IQ by about two and a half points. They also found no major negative or positive effects. From watching TV or using social media. That isn’t to say that there aren’t negative effects at all, but when it comes to people’s intelligence … Chemero explains, “The arguments that they are making us dumber don’t hold up.”
The researchers only studied the effects of screens on kids’ intelligence. They did not study the effects on physical activity, sleep, wellbeing, or school performance.