Screens 'damaging young brains'

Photo / Martin Sykes

A psychologist who made his name on the evils of television is now warning against computers as well, saying they are bad for the brains of young children.

Dr Aric Sigman, an American-born British psychologist who is in Auckland for a forum organised by Family First, says computers should not be used in schools by any children under 9.

He says research shows that young children's social and educational development is retarded by screens of all kinds - "TV, educational TV, DVDs, computers, social networking, computer games".

"Children are adults [legally] at 18 but their brains are not adult till they're 24 and a half," he said.

"Because of that, things that we know may have a negative impact should be limited till the brain has set in stone.

"So ideally, quite frankly, with children, wait as long as possible before they use technology for too many hours. There will be intellectual advantages for them."

In a seminal book in 2005, Dr Sigman assembled medical evidence from numerous studies showing that fast-moving TV images were blocking the normal development of children's brains, reducing their attention spans and feeding the growth of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obesity, early puberty and other health problems.

He now cites two studies published in the past month in the US and Romania showing similar reductions in maths and reading abilities in children aged 10 to 15 who were given computers, compared with control groups without computers.

Another study he conducted himself found that Britain's top private schools produced the best educational results with far less use of technology than state schools.

He concluded that children needed to learn about the real world before they could benefit from computers.

"They have to upload information about the real three-dimensional world before they start manipulating it in the virtual world."

Direct face-to-face communication was also vital to the development of language and empathy - an ability to understand and care about people other than yourself.

"How do children learn how to speak, how to enter a conversation, how to pronounce words?" he asked. "It is all linked to face-to-face contact because they need to see the facial muscles moving in their parents' faces.

"There are biological effects of aspirated words causing air pressure on the skin of children and hearing harmonics that don't come across through technologies."

He said an American analysis of 72 studies found a big decline in empathy in young people, especially in the past decade.

"Their interpretation of that was that electronic media displaced the essential face-to-face contact that is necessary for children to understand, when they say or do something, how do people's faces react. The hardwiring of empathy has gone missing."

Dr Sigman said his own three younger children, aged 11, 9 and 7, were allowed to use the computer at home "but they have to ask".

"My 7-year-old probably gets 20 minutes a week on the computer," he said.

The older children got more time because they needed the computer for their homework, but they were not allowed their own computers or TV sets in their bedrooms.

"If you put a fridge in a child's bedroom they will eat more," Dr Sigman said. "If you put a screen in their bedroom they are going to watch more."

SIGMAN'S TV RULES

Children under 3: No screen entertainment.
Older children: Maximum one hour quality TV daily.
Teenagers: 90 minutes of TV a day.
Under-15s: No TVs in the bedroom.
Under-9s: No computer use at school.