Excessive screen time spend by kids could have reverse effects on brain – Study

Latest smartphones and other similar devices have become a necessary evil in our lives and they are best understood by the new generation. Children who are curious are more keen on exploring new things on the smartphones which can lead to an extended screen time that they spend on the devices. The worst suspicion of the parents about the effects of too much screen time on their children have been partially confirmed with the help of the preliminary results of a new study.

The researchers have warned that the effects can be further reaching than they have actually suspected. The latest study by the National Institutes of Health have found that children who spend more than two hours in front of a screen everyday score lower on languages and thinking tests. The first batch of the findings will be published in 2019 but even the preliminary findings of the study need some attention. Parents must worry as an average teenager spends up to six hours per day on their phone or tablet.

The National Institutes of Health had conducted an ambitious $300 million Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study which has enrolled more than 11,000 children under the age group of 9-10 including 2,100 twins or triplets. The children under the study would be followed through young adulthood at 21 research sites across the U.S. For now not all of the early results can be fully understood until more data is collected by the researchers. For instance children who spent more than seven hours in front of a screen experience a premature thinning of the cortex compared to their friends who are not so much technically sound.

The cortex is the outer most layer of the brain and is the site of sensory input and the higher order functions that make us humans. But still researchers have said that they cannot draw a definitive conclusion from such findings.

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