Asked what evidence exists on the impact of digital devices on infants and young children, Professor Denis Mareschal, director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, replied: “There is very little, if any, causal research in the early years. Almost everything is correlational.”
Yes, but:
For Dr Dusana Dorjee, a senior lecturer in psychology in education at the University of York, the bigger concern was displacement. Children learn self-regulation through conversation, play, sport, and social interaction, she said, which can be crowded out by excessive screen use.
“What would children do if they were not on their devices?” she asked. “They would interact with others, they would play, they would have multi-sensory input that digital devices can’t provide.”
The researchers were also reluctant to throw every screen into the same bucket. Mareschal pointed to evidence that video calls can help families stay connected, while Dorjee drew a distinction between educational apps and endlessly scrolling whatever an algorithm decides comes next.
From: Scientists pour cold water on claims phones are rewiring kids’ brains
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