If you want your kid to grow up with a sharp mind, it means that leaving them in front of gadgets think for too long is a no-no.
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (or more cleverly, the ABCD study) conducted by Canadian researchers had analyzed the data from the U.S. project which lasted ten years in order to study the development of the child’s brain over time,
The National Institutes of Health has funded the project and as part of it many children along with their parents where interviewed by the researchers on their lifestyle habits. They were asked how much they sleep, how much they exercise and how much time they spend in front of screens. The children had also provided spit samples, took questionnaires and got their cognitive functions measured by playing with puzzles.
4,524 children from the ages of 8 to 11 took part from September 2016 to 2017 in the ABCD study, and the current study looked at their results.
In both the United States and Canada doctors do not recommend that kids over the age of 6 spend more than two hours a day using screens. According to the study, this advice was taken by 37 percent of children’s parents. Based on that, the study showed that these children were able to score better on the puzzle cognitive tests.
Taking into consideration the fact that this study is only observational which means that it can’t prove a direct link between poorer thinking and more screen time, the situation is tricky.
Even though some facts are not entirely or accurately proven, everybody knows that leaving your child in front of a tablet or a TV the whole day is not healthy for them.
Juana loves to cover the tech and gaming industry, she always stays on the first row of CES conference and reports live from there.
