How Devices Are Harming Our Kids & What We Can Do About It | Dr Charlotte Armitage | TEDxManchester

0:07 we all know that adults consume these products don't we adults consume these products knowing the impact that they can have on them there's research being done they have an informed choice about whether they take these products or not but how would you feel or would you as parents give alcohol to your child baby we're talking about here what about opium opium based products would we give those to infants what about cocaine based products I'm really hoping that's a no

0:38 from everybody as social services are on the phone caffeine full fat Cola I mean I still see that I still see parents giving that to to children we do know that's unhealthy what about cigarettes smoking would we allow little children smoke cigarettes and I'm hoping the answer from 99.9% of you here is is it no because we know how harmful these products are for our children but what have I told you that actually in the 16th to the 20th century

1:09 it was considered normal to give alcohol to babies used to put it in milk it helped them sleep it helped with teething helped with pain so it was a normal thing to do it was socially acceptable in the 18th and 19th century we regularly gave opium based products to Children you could buy opium based products over the counter seen as not problematic whatsoever when we realized that it was a problem cocaine based tooth drops were created this was seen as a cure all C it

1:41 cured the Opium addiction that we were seeing in these young children let's give them cocaine instead good luck with that but then we realized that was a problem as well but at the time it was normal to give cocaine based tooth drops to Children you could buy them over the counter and it was only really at the ear at start of the 20th century that cocaine was taken out of Coca-Cola normal to give baby Coca-Cola in the 20th century even probably now in

2:11 the 21st century we will see children drinking this it is full of caffeine it is a caffeine is a drug it's an addictive drug and this unfortunately in the 20th century maybe some of your parents I certainly know my dad was one of these these people who in the 20th century when he was little you know 50s 60s smoking was normal because it was glamorized the adults in society smoked it was glamorized it was seen sexy it

2:39 was seen as cool nobody knew about the risks of smoking and at the time all of these products were considered as safe and effective so if we look we've got the 16th century 17th 18th 19th and 20th we were giving children products which we now know are unhealthy I mean they're unhealthy at worst illegal now so what are we doing in the 21st century did we just get it right so we're no longer doing anything wrong

3:10 have we just nailed this parenting thing or is there something that we're doing now that in a 100 year's time someone's going to be doing a talk like this saying can you believe they did that so I want to go back to the questions I was asking you how many of you would think it would be okay to give your child a smart device to play with I think the answer is that most of us think that's okay because it's normal as

3:36 much as giving cocaine and opium and cigarettes to Children historically was considered normal and socially acceptable seeing children on devices is normal I think we've all been to a restaurant where we sat and we've seen a child behind a device I I was on holiday recently went on a whale watching tour the four children sat in front of me all on devices instead of watching this wonderful landscape that we were sailing past they were just sat on these devices

4:00 it's so normal and so commonplace now but at what cost and you might be thinking well it's a device not consuming it not ingesting it not smoking it inhaling it swallowing it but we are still consuming we're consuming it visually and it's not just the consumption of the device it's the impact that the device has on our interaction with the world and especially that of young children so what all of these products all have in common so cigarettes nicotine caffeine

4:29 cocaine opium alcohol and devices is that first of all it's us the adults as parents that choose to give these devices to the child the child isn't really asking for it we're just unleashing it on them two is considered as normal and it's effective isn't it if you've got a toddler wanting to run around H it's kind of annoying isn't it you want to sit down eat your meal in peace it's effective put them behind a device

4:57 you're not speak that Todd are not talking to you all day so it works but the the most important thing is that they all work on the same neurotransmitter systems in the brain they all work on the same addictive mechanisms I'm going to talk about the most commonly known neurotransmitter I think is dopamine we hear about dopamine a lot but dopamine is released to drive our action towards things that we experience as pleasurable so as much as we can be

5:28 addicted to cigarettes or alcohol or cocaine we can be addicted to a device as well and it's a really clear link between say cigarettes or cocaine and the impact on our health it's obvious isn't it we know it now but it's not as obvious with devices and as a mentioned the impact with devices is about how it stops US interacting with the world now let's have a look at the outcomes so if we we let's take the past

5:56 okay what happened in these previous centuries to these people people who consumed these products in infancy what happened to them in adulthood they all struggled with emotional regulation difficulties neurodevelopmental problems learning difficulties memory problems challenges with attentiveness hyperactivity motor development there were developmental delays as well certainly with alcohol there was an impact on physical growth a weakened immune system a higher propensity towards addiction and

6:27 substance use disorders obesity cardiovascular disease chronic pain and consequently mental health problems so if that's what's happened historically to people who have been addicted to these substances that work on the same neurotransmitter systems as the brain what do we think are going to be the outcomes of divis shes and infancy in years to come and we don't know I mean that's the reality we don't yet know because the we we're in the eye of

6:57 the storm right now we're we're in this place where in that early n to four period children are using devices free will willly all the time and we we are seeing the problems okay there's a pattern here they all work on the addictive mechanisms in our brain and the past helps us to predict the future so if we look at what happens to people historically we've got a good idea of what's going to happen to these

7:24 children in the future we already have mounting scientific evidence about the impact that devices are having on Child Development the evidence is that the younger a child gets a device the poorer the mental health outcomes in adolescence and adulthood we've already seen an impact of this is all scientifically researched and evidence an impact on physical cognitive emotional and behavioral outcomes speech and language development and speech and language develop is a big

7:55 one we've got 20% of children awaiting support for speech language at the moment 1.9 million children on waiting lists and the reason is that when we've got them behind a device they're not in the room with us that it's like I've got a device here child's got a device there they're not present CH a child learns through engaging in the real world they learn through their relationship with their primary caregiver so if you the primary caregiver behind your device and the

8:22 child's behind their device you've got this double pain barrier in between you and that child a young child learns about the world how to behave how to regulate their emotions how to speak through engaging in these activities with their primary caregivers and those around them but unfortunately when we're using devices too much we are stunting that development they actually at a table tables the dinner table is a great place for a child to acquire language they can

8:49 sit they listen they watch how other people do it they learn about turn taking so giving the child that opportunity to engage in language is is how they acquire that but at the moment we've got a big issue with it similarly with emotional regulation children learn to regulate their emotions through being taught so when you're upset and you're cry cry cry you need your parent or your primary caregiver to come to you and say oh what's wrong you seem really angry and

9:19 you know help the child oh that is angry this is what this means but when we just say oh God that noise here have a device we put the device in front of them we've all done it put the device in front of them but what we're doing is we're teaching them to use something external to soothe their emotions so instead of sort of say helping them to internally regulate their emotions we're saying hey use this external object which is a

9:42 device right now that's going to sooth your emotions now at this age it's a device but as they get older they're always going to be reaching for something external when they feel bad because they can't regulate themselves emotional regulation is the is the Bedrock of healthy psychological functioning in adulthood if we can't regulate our emotions that's when we struggle School Readiness 33% of children in the UK are not school ready so that means they can't go to the

10:11 bathroom on their own they can't communicate their basic needs and their speech and language is not at the level that it should be obesity now but obviously not eating devices so how is it impacting obesity well there's a four-fold increase in obesity in children since the 90s and it's doubled in adults now there's it's multifactorial there are various reasons but ultimately if your child is addicted to a device which is what happens in our brain when we use a

10:40 screen too much they are going to favor time that behind a screen than they are getting up and moving around if they're not moving around it's going to have an impact on the amount of calories that they burn I mean I work with quite a lot of schools and I've found that children are starting school I've been certainly been told that children are starting school and able to put their arms above their heads unable to run around stamina

11:01 is an issue I was told by a school recently that they had a child who couldn't sit up on the chair because their core strength had not developed enough because they spent so much time slouched behind a sofa watching the screen so we see muscular galal problems as well but teachers regularly comment on stamina now so they'll say that children don't have stamina that never used to be a problem so child's fine and gross motor movement if evolve through

11:30 running around and engaging in the world and that is a lot for a parent isn't it but we need to allow them that space to do that naturally our sleep is affected by using devices especially with teenagers they'll tell you that they're on their screens till really late at night and they don't sleep they don't get the depth of sleep they don't get the quality of sleep and then that has an impact on their mood their

11:54 attentiveness the next day and it goes on and on it's a vicious cycle and look ultimately if all of these factors aren't sorted out your mental health is going to suffer as well if we're not engaging in the real world we're not doing activities that we fail at we're not going to develop resilience if we don't do activities that we succeed at like our sports or our Hobbies then we're not going to develop self-esteem self-confidence and that's what's

12:20 happening with the teenage generation especially atypical sensory processing there's an Evidence here between ADHD and device use and the development of autism now dopamine is the main neurotransmitter involved in ADHD if we're using our devices which is encouraging the release of dopamine in the brain it's it's not not a surprise that it's hard for us to pay attention on anything else because we're looking for the dopamine hit the whole time so what do we think we're going to see with

12:48 future Generations well if that's the pro what we're seeing now it's not going to be good for the future is it we're going to have a a grown up adult population in 15 years with emotional regulation problems challenges with attentiveness we're seeing this already impaired impersonal skills poor emotional development physical health problems muscular sceletal issues impair creativity if you don't have to think if everything's given to you like through social scrolling social media it's all passive

13:18 isn't it it's all passive engagement we're not thinking we're not learning to think for ourselves we're not developing those critical thinking skills and this is all going to result in us being much more socially isolated and again it will have a really negative impact on our mental health as a species we haven't evolved to a point where we can just live through devices we need much more interaction with the world with other humans with nature in order

13:43 to survive in a nutshell too much device use is going to result in a Public Health crisis we're already getting there in 10 to 15 years it is going to be much worse so my advice is delay the introduction of a device into the child's life for as long as possible when you do introduce it gradually introduce it much like we do in the real world we don't just kick our four-year-old out and go hey find

14:06 yourself the way to school and bring the shopping home we actually gradually introduce them so we need to do that with the online world as well what are the risks what are the obvious risks and what are the not so obvious risks we need to introduce them to that and teach them but we also need to learn that as well we're the problem I mean we we're all really bad with our devices aren't we we need need to model healthy devices

14:31 behaviors when we normalize that that will just become normal for your child no devices at the dinner table is a good place to start easy one communicate talk to each other find out about each other's day no devices in the bedroom charge all your devices downstairs the research has found that even just having a phone in the room even if it's in a drawer will have an impact on your sleep create some device free zones at home so

14:57 that can be a period of time or so between six and eight we don't use devices or it could be a space so it might be certain room where you don't allow phones in but just start thinking about it what works for you as a family ultimately putting these boundaries in is where we need to start these devices are integrated into our lives children are going to be using these as they get older so we need to teach them how to

15:20 healthily and safely use them and integrate them into their worlds and just one final thought these three guys all very successful in their field billionaires but the one thing that they all have in common is that they don't let their own children use devices they know the risks they created them they created these apps but they don't allow their own children near them they're very strict so if they're not letting their children on them why on

15:52 Earth are we letting our children anywhere near them thank you