Module 4: Articles on Digital Media and Development

The day before the start of Vishal Singh’s senior year in high school, he faces a stark choice on his bedroom desk: book or computer?

On YouTube, “you can get a whole story in six minutes,” he explains. “A book takes so long. I prefer the immediate gratification.”

Students have always faced distractions. But computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, are a new challenge to focusing and learning.

It is a tension on vivid display at Vishal’s school, Woodside High School in Redwood City, California. Here, as elsewhere, it’s not uncommon for students to send hundreds of text messages a day or spend hours playing video games, and virtually everyone is on Facebook.

Pediatricians are encouraged to take a media history and ask 2 media questions at every well-child visit: How much recreational screen time does your child or teenager consume daily? Is there a television set or Internet-connected device in the child’s bedroom?

Although media are not the leading cause of any major health problem in the United States, the evidence is now clear that they can and do contribute substantially to many different risks and health problems and that children and teenagers learn from, and may be negatively influenced by, the media.

The overwhelming penetration of media into children’s and teenagers’ lives necessitates a renewed commitment to changing the way pediatricians, parents, teachers, and society address the use of media to mitigate potential health risks and foster appropriate media use.

The overwhelming penetration of media into children’s and teenagers’ lives necessitates a renewed commitment to changing the way pediatricians, parents, teachers, and society address the use of media to mitigate potential health risks and foster appropriate media use.

This is what’s happening right now with neuroscience. The field is obviously incredibly important and exciting. From personal experience, I can tell you that you get captivated by it and sometimes go off to extremes, as if understanding the brain is the solution to understanding all thought and behavior.

These two forms of extremism are refuted by the same reality. The brain is not the mind.