Screen Time Is Stolen Time 

À French neuroscientist shows that screens and kids shouldn't mix. 

In the good old days, the triad of family, school, and street maintained the raising of children and adolescents. The Internet first replaced the street. Then, it conquered schools. Now, it's swallowing families. The triad of raising youngsters has become screen, screen, screen. 

In 2019, French neuroscientist Michel Desmurget published the book La Fabrique du Crétin Digital (The Digital Cretin Factory), which has now been translated into English with the more moderate title of Screen Damage. In the book Desmurget presents some vitally important points. 

Our children are immersed in screens much more than we think. In their first two years, Desmurget shows, kids spend, on average, nearly 50 minutes daily on screens. Screen time reaches two hours and 45 minutes between the ages of two and eight, four hours and 45 minutes between the ages of eight and 12, and an astonishing seven hours and 15 minutes between the ages of 13 and 18. That represents 20 percent, 32 percent, and 45 percent of kids' waking time, respectively. 

According to Desmurget, technologies rapidly grow to satisfy the needs of the myth of “digital natives,” and “digital natives” grow even more digital as they are more immersed “in screens. Simultaneously, as Desmurget shows, the more that countries invest in “information and communication technologies for education," the more pupil performance falls. The consequences are not just academic failure but arrested cognitve, physical, emotional, and social development.

Studies show that “children who learn to write on a computer, with a keyboard, have a much harder time remembering and recognizing letters than those who learn with their hand, a pencil and a sheet of paper.” The positive effect of screens, even when employed for educational purposes, is either negligible or non-detectable; the damage is huge. Even more devastating is the harm of recreational digital use. 

The time spent with screens in early age is simply “stolen time” from kids' development. Adults usually tolerate the waste of their time on gadgets, as they think they can compensate for this loss through later efforts. It does not work this way for children. Early cognitive development heavily relies on the plasticity of the young brain. “The great periods of brain plasticity . . . do not last forever,” writes Desmurget. “Once closed, they can no longer be resuscitated. VVhat has been spoiled is forever lost.” 

For example, basic language skills form in the first years of life. Live interaction with adults makes children's language incomparably richer than any screen substitutes, even educational ones. The reason is simple: adults use a great variety of words and syntactic structures, while educational TV programs tend to employ “age-appropriate,” meaning artificially reduced vocabulary and syntax. Adults also routinely correct kids, and this provides much wider speech diversity than any well-designed program couid ever do.

A lack of real human communication in the first four years of life irreparably affects development. If screens occupy 20 percent to 30 percent of kids' waking time at this age, they subtract a respective share of cognitive development, giving back nothing in exchange except for health issues, aggressiveness, and anxiety. 

(Adapted from: https:/Avww .city-journal.org) 

Decide if the statements below are true (T) or false (F), according to the text. Then choose the option that contains the correct sequence. 

(   ) The amount of time that children spend using screens is higher than the amount of time spent by adolescents. 

(   ) The use of “information and communication technologies for education” has led to students' lower performance, and problems in their cognitive, emotional, and social development. 

(   ) Writing by hand on paper is more effective for children who ara learning to write than writing on a computer, with a keyboard. 

(   ) The damage caused to learners by the use of screens is enormous. 

(   ) The author says that adults are responsible for kids' “stolen time” from their development. 

(   ) The author says that both children and adults can compensate for the losses in their cognitive development.