Investigating screentime

I go through phases in which I read and write about specific topics. A recent interest has been screen time. While this topic has been an area of investigation for some time, often associated with childhood obesity, my interest is more related to learning capacity and the potential consequences of the technology gifts we give our grandchildren. My wife and I are obviously technology advocates and we take seriously considering both the potential positive and negative consequences of technology tools. 

For example:

“Observational studies in humans have linked exposure to fast-paced television in the first 3 years of life with subsequent attentional deficits in later childhood.” (source is included at a later point)

Research on certain topics is more difficult than many not involved might think. This is one of the things you learn in taking a course in introductory psychology. The basic problem is the control of all potential independent variables when investigating variables that are hypothesized to have negative consequences. Simply put – you don’t do what you think may harm people to people just to see what happens. What you do instead is to try to find situations that may offer information without intervening. So, if you are interested in violent video games, you search for individuals who spend a lot of time playing such games and compare these individuals with people who do not. If you are concerned that young children become more distractable when given control of technology devices, you find young kids who seem to enjoy such activities and contrast them with children not involved in such activities. When observation rather than intervention is the approach to research, you often are told that correlation is not causality. This is a way of explaining that variables you have not controlled may be the actual cause of the consequence you observe. Just to be fair, this may not be the case and the variable of interest is responsible. You just don’t know for sure. This is why scientists interested in these topics keep trying to find different ways to approach key questions and argue a lot as to what findings produced might mean. In many ways, scientists who study human behavior have obstacles scientists investigating many other areas do not face.

One alternative to the ethical issue in subjecting humans to potentially damaging independent variables is to conduct studies with animals. Animal research is common in the field of medicine and sometimes to investigate issues of interest to psychologists.

For example, intro psychology textbooks often describe a famous study comparing mice raised in an enriched or deprived environment demonstrating advantages in brain development for the enriched environment. This research is argued to be relevant to the importance of early stimulation for infants.

Overstimulation of mice can also be produced and one technique is described in the following paragraph. To me, this sounds like a torture technique I find described in some of the espionage fiction I read. 

“Speakers, connected to a precision amplification device, were mounted above standard mouse cages, and colored lights were positioned at all four walls. Audio from the “cartoon channel” was piped into the mouse cage at 70 dB. This level is typical for television watching and well below the 100–115 dB that are typically used for acoustic stress models in rodents (117, 118). A photorhythmic modulator was used to change colors and intensities in concordance with the audio, thereby simulating television that cannot be avoided (e.g., flashing lights on all four sides of the cage).”

These researchers find that the hyperstimulated mice suffered negative neurological consequences the researchers compared to ADHD. 

I do think research in this area is important because it does seem to me that the use of technology devices would be among the possible experiences capable of causing brain changes through brain plasticity. It is important to note that plasticity is adaptive to large amounts of stimulation and this adaption is a built in opportunity for the brain to move beyond genetic dispositions. This does not mean that the adaptations cannot have negative consequences. 

I cannot help trying imagine being in that mouse cage and being exposed to the stimulation I have no way to control. Is this analog what young children sitting on the couch watching cartoons or playing with an app on an iPad experience? My immediate reaction would be that even animal researchers should offer a method of control (press the bar to turn on and off) to more accurately approximate what a two-year old experiences. If the two-year old is not engaged, he/she can wander off to the kitchen or try another app.

The link I offer provides access to the study I summarize. Interested parties may find the introduction as valuable as the argument for this animal study.