On the heels of last weeks article about how to get outside even when it’s cold out I found a recent study showing how screen time affects children’s brains. If you need more reasons to get outside and turn off the screens check this out.

This article was published in the Journal of the American Medical Associations pediatric journal. They evaluated how much time children spent in front of screens and then had the children preform different tasks to evaluate their language skills and executive functions. Executive functions are the ability to plan, organize, initiate goals, solve problems and control emotions and behaviors. So kind of important life skills right? They also did MRI scans of the children’s brains to evaluate structural elements of their brain.

Specifically what they were looking at was the white matter in certain areas of the brain. White matter is the covering over the nerves. It is critical for the transmission of nerve impulses. It also plays a key role in the nerves cells making new connections which is what happens every time we learn something new. Also something that is pretty important right?

So here is what the study found. The more time children spent in front of screens the lower their language skills were and the lower their executive functioning was. The MRI also showed decreased white matter in their brains in the areas that control those functions. So here is a study showing actual physical changes to the brain when screen time is increased.

This study shows that you should be limiting screen time as much as possible. The Academy of Pediatricians recommends no screen time for children under 18 months of age except for video chatting. For children 18 to 24 months old they should have very limited screen time. Children 2 to 5 years old should have no more than one hour per day of high quality programming. They also recommend the parents watch with them to explain what they are seeing and help them process it.

So take the tips I gave last week, turn off the screens and get outside.