Before they even start school: How social media affects the brain

The Daily Advertiser

Social media and screentime is commonplace in Australian homes, but experts are concerned about the affect even a small amount of screentime can have on young brains.

Transcript

00:00Between 0 to 5, we as humans develop more rapidly than at any other time in our lives.

00:09Every word, toy or conversation we encounter sets us up for a life in a world filled with

00:15people and distraction.

00:16But experts who work with Australia's youngest population have concerns social media and

00:22screen time could be causing kids to miss out, big time.

00:26You are losing contact with a lot of opportunities to engage in other things, especially play,

00:32which is often an undervalued part of children's lives.

00:36In Australia, kids between 2 and 5 are recommended no more than one hour of screen time per day.

00:43Less than one in five are meeting that guideline.

00:46They're tending to use what they see their parents using.

00:49So they might be going onto their parents' phone and playing around with different apps.

00:53It's amazing how literate they are.

00:56I look at kids sometimes now playing with phones and they know exactly how to get into

01:00things.

01:01So that's one part of this.

01:02Snapchat is featured a lot.

01:03There's a lot of filters and a lot of things that make that very appealing to very young

01:07children.

01:08When they withdraw from screens and social media, experts have found young children are

01:13struggling to regulate their own emotions.

01:16I think we see children increasingly receiving high levels of dopamine from their engagement

01:22with social media and just technology generally.

01:26And then they don't really have the skills or the neurological awareness to be able to

01:34manage and regulate themselves around that.

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