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The world is f* in so many ways but the digitalisation of schools and the proliferation of smart phone use and digital media in kids and teenage douches ain’t helping a brother out. The idea that every 6 year old kid should have access to computer at school in order to level out social gaps is as naive as it is stupid. Science & Cocktails proudly presents the neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer, who has reviewed hundreds of studies on the impact of digital media on learning and education. What he has found is scary.
Smartphone use interferes with normal neurobiological, psychosocial, and physical development and thereby produces detrimental effects on health and educational attainment, especially in children and adolescents. Known and well documented health risks include myopia, weight gain and obesity, musculoskeletal disorders, sleeplessness, hypertension, type-II diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression (including suicide), irritability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), addiction (to smartphones and to alcohol and nicotine), and high risk behaviours regarding traffic (accidents) and sex (sexually transmitted diseases). Because smartphones interfere with attention and learning, they cause a decrease in educational attainment, which is the most significant protective factor when it come to the development of dementia in old age.
Therefore, smartphones will contribute to the burden of increased prevalence of dementia in the coming decades. Taken together, it appears highly irresponsible to take the effects of current smartphone overuse lightly. Manfred Spitzer, neuroscientist, psychiatrist and psychologist will discuss studies where smart phone use in children and adolescents have been conducted. Indeed, the results aren’t funny boy.