Warning: This is pure speculation. I am kind of thinking out loud here.
But what if the prevalence of smart phones and hand-held screens is directly linked to an increased prevalence of anxiety in early childhood?
It seems to me that I am coming across a lot more children displaying anxious behaviour, or disruptive, difficult behaviour that may be based in anxiety ( https://www.heysigmund.com/anxiety-or-aggression-children/ ) than i ever used to back when i used to work with children.
Of course there are probably multiple reasons that could be behind this - increased financial stress on young families, the social trend towards organised classes and activities leading to over-scheduling, overstimulation, altered nutrition as a result of changes in diet, farming practices, and the effects of a few generations of artificial infant milks, antibiotics, and cesarean births (all life-saving interventions, I will add) on the human biome, maybe even an epigenetic legacy of war? But still, it does seem to me that there has been a steeper increase of anxiety-related behaviour in very young children in very recent years.
I don't have any kind of data to offer to back this up, it is purely an observation.
Because I have spent my life trying to figure out how I am supposed to behave as a human being, and what other humans are doing and why, I tend to pay attention to patterns of behaviour.
If it is true that recent years have seen an increase in young children suffering from anxiety, and other people (preferably more educated than myself) have noticed this also, I would be very curious as to how the increase, if any, tracks with the introduction and rising use of smart phones over time.
In this video, if you go to about 7 minutes 30 seconds in, they are showing pictures of how this study on using play for emotional connection appears to have visibly altered altered brain function towards a less fearful and more socially-connected pattern.
(Please, don't get all up in arms about the mention of rewiring peoples' brains - that's really not what I'm talking about; this is an old clip, it's just the only clear visual representation that I know where to find.)
So I wonder: If play and emotional connection can calm the brain's fear response, is the reverse also true? Can lack of interactive play and lack of face-to-face emotional connection produce a state of heightened anxiety?
What if adult use of smart phones is a major factor in blocking babies and young children from getting as much face-to-face interaction and social, communicative play as they might have done in previous generations? What if that wires them for anxiety?
What if the child's own use of screens as they get older is lessening the amount of play they engage in, and that lack of play is directly increasing stress and anxiety?
What if the prevalence of screens is directly increasing anxiety in young children by depriving them of face-to-face, positive, playful interaction in their crucial first years?
I do not want to lay this all at parents' feet - it's everywhere. Babies and little children are coming into a world where the people around them everywhere they go are staring at these little flat things, and not usually with a cheerful, open expression, either. (Still face experiment, anyone??) What percentage of a child's social interactions does that affect? How many smiley, pre-verbal conversations with strangers are missed? How many impromptu games of peepo? How many minutes of widened eyes, smiling faces, and cooing voices are our children missing out on as they move through the world?
I do not want to lay this all at parents' feet - it's everywhere. Babies and little children are coming into a world where the people around them everywhere they go are staring at these little flat things, and not usually with a cheerful, open expression, either. (Still face experiment, anyone??) What percentage of a child's social interactions does that affect? How many smiley, pre-verbal conversations with strangers are missed? How many impromptu games of peepo? How many minutes of widened eyes, smiling faces, and cooing voices are our children missing out on as they move through the world?
I know that people have connected the lack of playtime in childhood with an increase in mental ill-health in children and adolescents. I've read quite a few references to increase in screen usage linked to decrease in language ability in young children. Generally speaking, I think it is fairly clear that lack of positive social interaction is not good for mental health, and I am pretty certain that a state of anxiety affects our ability to interact. My guess would be that these factors could intertwine, along with other factors of modern lifestyle, to the effect that babies and little children these days are growing up in an overwhelming, disconnected, anxiety-inducing world that no longer bears much resemblance to the innocent, carefree childhood world that their grandparents might have been lucky enough to inhabit in their first years.
I'm not suggesting we blame modern technology for everything; i think it is seldom wise to go hunting for one sole cause of any complex issue.
But what if all we have to do to make a change for the better is to put down the phone and play?
