Guest speaker presents powerful data on digital media

99% of American households have TV sets. The average household in America has 25 internet connected devices in it. When we look at children’s bedrooms, 40% of preschoolers have TVs in their bedrooms.” - Douglas Gentile, Ph.D.

The world is at a turning point, where screens, much like addictive substances throughout history, have rapidly spread across society until their negative consequences came to light. The effects of digital media are starting to become more understood by data and research. HCSD and Myrtue Medical Center partnered up to bring Douglas Gentile, Ph.D., a psychology professor and researcher from ISU who brought in a collection of data from his and other studies, to speak to the schools and community on Wednesday, August 28. Gentile’s message highlighted how powerful digital media is in the development of children and culture as a whole, while also emphasizing the importance of parental action in mitigating problems and using digital media positively.

Confronting the data and hard evidence reveals that, even if not outright addictive, excessive screen use still leads to lower grades, increased aggression, impulsiveness, and worsened mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, ADHD, and overall unhappiness. While most research over the past 20 years has focused on gaming, emerging studies on general screen time show similar negative effects. Screen use creates a vicious cycle: screen time is used to cope with problems, but it only exacerbates them—loneliness drives more 'social' media use, and children are handed screens to 'keep' their attention, leading to further issues.

“When does it become a disorder? It’s not about how much you do it, it’s about- Is it disrupting other areas of your life? That’s true for any addiction. When does it start damaging family life? When does it start damaging kids’ social life because they stop being interested in clubs, sports, or music, or other things they used to be interested in? Addictions are defined by being dysfunctional,” Gentile stated.

Where recently the World Health Organization declared Gaming Disorder as a mental health disorder, Gentile shared the U.S. is lagging in having a diagnosis, treatment, and help. Being on a committee advising those revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), he hopes the DSM 6 will address screen addictions in the next few years.  

In a study of 3,000 kids across 3 years, Gentile and his colleagues measured addiction symptoms. Though the study suggested gaming is leading mental health problems, Gentile emphasized, “ Mental health disorders beget other mental health disorders. It’s called comorbidity. The question of which started the process is not what's most important. Therapists have to treat the whole package.”

Gentile showed a study of a classroom of children ages 3-5 years-old who watched a Barney show and then a Power Ranger show the next day. He demonstrated that just 20 minutes can have a powerful influence and change the whole environment of a classroom. His research and studies, however, looked at exposures over time and across a range of ages. His studies on aggression, attention, grades, and mental health have implications on the development of the brain in how it becomes wired to respond in certain ways. When a child is subdued by a screen, their brains are being wired to rely on that constant stimulation. When a person grows up playing video games, their brain gets constant rewards for reacting in quick, impulsive ways. 

While studies are complex, involving many factors and comorbid disorders, one thing is clear- there simply isn’t enough time in a week. Surveys reveal that the average American school-age child spends just 2.5 hours per week interacting with their mother and a staggering 0.5 hours weekly with non-school reading. In contrast, they spent an overwhelming amount of time on screens for entertainment purposes, taking away from the quality time of social interactions and developmental activities like reading.

“I have no doubt parents matter,” Gentille addressed the audience. “You’re not getting equal time. You're not getting anything close to equal time. You add it up; it is an average of 54 hours a week the average American school-age child is in front of the screen not for school purposes. That’s a full-time job with 14 hours of overtime.”

Gentile suggests a collective effort and partnership to combat this huge issue we face. It takes a shift in what we have become comfortable with and normalized as a culture over the years.

“Here’s the good news. This is my favorite study I ever did. We studied 1,300 3rd-5th graders in Iowa and Minnesota. We measured them multiple times through the school year, looking at parents who do have rules, and their kids are consuming lower amounts of screen time. We followed them out to the end of the school year. Those kids with more limits are getting better sleep, which lowers their BMI and risk for obesity. They are getting better grades in school.  They show more prosocial behaviors as rated by the teachers. The teachers don’t know the rules at home for media, but they can see the behaviors. They are less aggressive as rated by the teacher,” Gentile shared.

Gentile offered three tips that have been shown to make huge impacts against the negative effects of screens:

1. Restrictions on time

2. Restrictions on the content

3. Co-viewing with critical discussion

The fourth suggestion is one of the most powerful things parents can do. Parents can watch with their kids and have discussions to ask questions about the media’s points of view, the good, the bad, the wrong, and the right. 

“When you sit and watch with your kids and you talk to them about what they are seeing and hearing, it mitigates almost all of the negative effects and enhances the positive effects,” Gentile emphasized twice. “Here’s the caveat. If you sit and watch with them and you don’t discuss it, it enhances the negative effects.” 

There needs to be partnerships and a community standard to protect children from addiction and growing up with a normalized presence of constant screens. Parents can work with the school and other parents to normalize having no phones at school. Schools have tried many measures, like phones left at the door before entering classrooms. Expectations held by teachers and parents need to extend into partnerships, teams, and the community.

Before answering questions, Gentile made a last point, “You will never know you are having an effect. You’ll never know if your child gained less weight than they would have or have better grades than they would have had. You only see what your child is. You don’t know what your child would have been if you relaxed the rules. What do you see? You see the fight over the rules, and this is why parents feel powerless. They see the fighting, but they cannot see the beneficial effect of those rules. You are in a much more powerful position than you realize.”

As a last idea, maybe bring the old flip phone back! While the fight against a world full of screens may not feel like it is making a difference or worth it, data shows it is.