Member-only story
So screen time must coddle the brains of our kids, surely?!
Well, no. In fact barely.
I don’t believe it! Vegetating away, and scrolling infinitudes of brainless social media just has to be bad for your kids’ brains!
Well, no, as I said, and I’ll say it again, no. This piece of research tracking almost 12,000 kids, yes 12'000 kids, found only very mild links to behavioural and attention problems.
Are you sure?
Yes, you can read it for yourself from Katie Paulich et al. from the University of Boulder, Colorado. And they note that compared to other factors shaping these kids lives, the effect was tiny. To be precise it accounts for about 2% of variance.
Well, that is a surprise!
Yes, but remember in my youth TV was going to coddle our brains. But there is more surprising news: kids who had higher screen time had more close friends!
What!
Yes, that is really counterintuitive. They’re not sure why — it could be that these kids are online all the time together, or they’re building social awareness through watching others. Your guess is as good as mine.
