Module 6: Delineate the beneficial and problematic uses of screens according to the age of the learners
Aim of the module
The aim of this learning module is to cover a wide range of skills and knowledge needed for teachers and trainers about the beneficial and problematic uses of screens according to the age of the learners. We will delve into how the different age groups use digital media and in how it is good or bad for them.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of this module the learners will have gained knowledge and skills needed to understand how different age groups are affected by digital media, as listed below:
Knowledge
- Why excessive screen time can be harmful to young children.
- Understanding how young children can be negatively affected by digital media
- How screentime can affect older children, youths and adults
- Understanding how the brain regulates addiction
- Understanding and analysing how the different age groups use digital media
- Understanding how some individuals may be more vulnerable to the effects of digital devices than others.
- How screentime can be problematic or beneficial
- Understanding how to avoid internet or gaming addiction
- Understanding children’s use of loot boxes
Skills
Identifying what kind of digital devices can be beneficial or problematic for young people
- Analysing how to reduce your own screen time
- Supporting well-rounded development and reducing reliance on digital devices during leisure time.
List of Topics
Research shows that screen use has a strong negative effect on the brain development of children under 3 years of age, leading to poorer development of white brain matter. The World Health Organisation recommends that children aged 3-5 should use screens unaccompanied for a maximum of one hour each day, and children under 3 should use screens as little as possible. Clinical research indicates that face-to-face interaction is much more beneficial for young children’s learning and development. Silicon Valley tech leaders often send their children to schools that use little technology, emphasising creativity and hands-on activities. It is crucial for parents to engage with their children directly, as digital devices cannot provide the necessary emotional and developmental support.
Excessive screen use in older children and youths can lead to depression, anxiety, and aggression, similar to effects of addictive drugs. Excessive screen time can cause psychotic-like reactions. Gender differences show that girls are more affected by social media, leading to higher rates of insecurity and social anxiety. Research indicates no direct link between violent games and real-life violence, but gaming addiction is recognised by the WHO as a serious health problem. Preventive measures include parental involvement and self-control training to mitigate the risks of addiction.
Adults are increasingly experiencing issues with screen addiction, particularly related to mobile phone use, which is often linked to boredom and the inability to activate themselves. A significant portion of adults, especially parents and young people, feel guilty about to amount of time they spend online. Research shows that many adults would rather experience discomfort than be alone with their thoughts, as demonstrated by a study where participants chose to seek stability and avoid uncertainty even if it means remaining in uncomfortable situations. Gambling addiction is also prevalent among adults, particularly within certain demographic groups, and it is often used as a coping mechanism for stress and financial problems or social isolation. The brain’s reward system changes with addiction, making it difficult to distinguish right from wrong and increasing the need for further addictive behaviour to achieve fulfilment and satisfaction.
Objective, Key Concepts, Skills to Develop
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Understand how digital media can be harmful for your health and why
- How digital devises affect different age groups
- Learn coping methods to enable young people to reflect on their own screentime use
Guide for Learning
To maximise the learning materials in this module, start by understanding how dopamine affects the brain and why it can be harmful, especially for younger children
To improve learning capabilities, participate in discussions and collaborative activities, explore the provided links for deeper insights and, after each section, consider how to apply your learning in practice.
Motivating Case Study
Jay is 16 years old. He has a maths exam tomorrow and is studying in his bedroom. It is an advanced topic, so he should concentrate. The phone plings, he checks it, and it is an alert from a game. He turns off the sound. This will only disturb his concentration. He manages to solve one equation and is quite happy. He feels an urge to reward himself with some gaming but manages to resist. He still has many equations to go. But it is hard to focus on the math. He promises himself that he should finish all the equations before he can play. He therefore moves into the kitchen where there is no computer and leaves the phone behind.
Research shows that you can concentrate better if you are not close to your phone because humans learn to automatically pay attention to things that are habitually relevant to them, even when they are focused on a different task.
Through this training module, trainers will learn how to empower students like Jay to make better choices. Equipped with these skills, young learners will have better control over their screentime use.
Topic 1 - Why screens are especially problematic for young children
A warning bell should ring when those who are most careful about their children’s screen use are technology leaders. Apple founder Steve Jobs was notorious for his strict rules when it came to children and technology. Several of Silicon Valley’s technology leaders and engineers send their children to schools that deliberately use little technology, such as Waldorf School of the peninsula / Steiner education. Notably 75% of all children who attend have parents who work in the technology industry. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s children went to Montessori Schools. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales both went to Montessori schools for their primary education. These schools have a pedagogy that is more arts based and stimulates children’s creativity. They must learn how to play an instrument, they work to create objects of art by for example sculpting, knitting and painting to develop fine motor skills. These schools emphasise games instead of competitive sports, and technology use is very restricted. While Montessori education encourages natural curiosity with a focus on independent learning, Waldorf schooling emphasises holistic advancement through creativity and imagination
Newspapers regularly publish articles that claim that it is harmful for young children to use screens, and it is indeed true. Research shows that it has a particularly negative effect on the brain development of children under three years of age. Clinical studies have shown that screen usage leads to poorer development of white brain matter, the part of the brain used for cognitive processes and language development. This has been shown by scanning children’s brains.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that children between the ages of 3-5 should only use screens unaccompanied for a maximum of one hour each day. Children under this age should use screens as little as possible. Many parents think that new technology is educational for children. But clinical research shows that children under the age of three need face-to-face interaction. Excessive screen time leads to poorer sleep and language development. The following article on CNN highlights new research on this matter:
Engaging in play and verbal communication with young children is essential for their emotional development. During the early stages of life, children rely on direct human interaction. Facial expression and emotional responses shows them how to make sense of the world around them. Young children have a need to feel acknowledged and emotionally supported. Unlike digital devices, human caregivers provide essential non-verbal cues like smiles, hugs and warmth.
While certain digital games can offer educational value and entertainment for young children, their development can benefit from play with a responsive adult. Notably, children as young as two years old have an intuitive ability to engage with digital technologies, including computer games.
Resources
Below you can read about parental controls to help children’s use of internet use
Practical exercise:
Research why having fine motor skills is good for you using an appropriate search engine. Write a list of 5 relevant points .
Discuss in a group or reflect:
What kind of occupations require fine motor skills?
Topic 2 – How screens affect older children and youths
Excessive screen-time also affect older children. In this chapter you will learn about how the use of excessive screen-time can affect older children and young people and how it can be compared to addictive drugs like nicotine and narcotics.
Excessive engagement with digital gaming can be associated with a range of negative psychological outcomes, including symptoms of depression, but it is important to recognise that in certain circumstances for some teens excessive gaming can be a habit, or it may be a coping mechanism. Studies have shown that brain activity in children engaged in prolonged gaming sessions are similar to those observed in individuals under the influence of addictive substances. It is noteworthy to acknowledge that behavioural actions to the removal of digital devices in some children, include tantrums and aggression mirror withdrawal-like symptoms seen from people with addiction dependencies.
Johann Hari has written a book about this. He writes that our brain can only produce one or two thoughts in our conscious mind at any time. We have limited cognitive capacity. But we have been deluded. The average teenager now believes they can follow six forms of media at the same time. When neuroscientists studied this, they found that when people believe they are doing several things at once, they are just juggling between tasks. They’re switching back and forth. They don’t notice the switching because their brain sort of papers it over to give a seamless experience of consciousness, but what they are doing is switching and reconfiguring their brain moment-to-moment, task-to-task, and that comes with a cost. Imagine, you are doing your math homework, and you receive a text, and you look at it – it’s only a glance, taking three seconds – and then you go back to your homework. In that moment, your brain must reconfigure, when it goes from one task to another. You must remember what you were doing before the interruption, and you have to remember what you thought about that issue. When this happens, the evidence shows that your performance drops. Your reaction is slower.
This is called the “switch-cost effect”. It means that if you check your texts while trying to work, you aren’t only losing the little bursts of time you spend looking at the texts themselves – you are also losing the time it takes to refocus afterwards.
For example, one study at Carnegie Mellon University’s human computer interaction lab took 136 students and asked them to sit a test. Some of them had to have their phones switched off, and others had their phones on and received intermittent text messages. The students who received messages performed, on average, 20% worse. With the constant interruptions people face in society today, this could indicate that almost everyone is currently losing 20% of our brain power most of the time.
Hundreds of clinical studies show that excessive screen-time use can lead to depression, anxiety and aggression which leads to psychotic-like reactions when gamers lose their grip on reality. In the article below, a psychologist writes that, over the course of six months, she had met five young people who began to see and hear sounds that did not exist. To break the addiction, the activity that causes it must stop completely for between two to six weeks depending on how quickly that person’s brain can adapt to life without a screen.
Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, who wrote Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids’ Brains, explains that he has worked with over 1,000 teenagers over the past 15 years. He says that the most important thing is prevention, because when young people become addicted to technology it is difficult to treat it.
https://nypost.com/2016/08/27/its-digital-heroin-how-screens-turn-kids-into-psychotic-junkies/?fbclid=IwAR36Ho-BPtefNpWuXaKJDrFTpxAiKATzE4cAhmV0JdYO-bNUgnyGM9zXlKs
Research indicates that boys tend to engage more frequently in gaming, whereas girls are more likely to spend time on social media platforms. Teenage girls are twice as likely as boys to display depressive symptoms linked to social media. These symptoms are predominantly linked to experiences of cyberbullying, disrupted sleep patterns, negative body image and low self-esteem. In a British study, 11,000 young people were analysed, and the results showed that 14-year-old girls used social media more frequently than boys. There is also a higher percentage of girls using social media for more than three hours a day, compared to boys.
Follow the link below for more information.
There is a common perception that violent computer games can cause increased aggression in children. However, to date, no research has shown any correlation between violent computer games and real-world violence. A thorough review of statistics in the USA relating to violence and gaming shows no correlation. They look at the correlation between violence and the introduction of violent games, and the statistics rather show the opposite effect. Computer games have led to less violence. However, the researchers also write that they do not want to rule out that perhaps in certain situations some individuals could be affected, but this has not been sufficiently researched.
Read this link from Researchgate
American research has shown that many of the young individuals involved in high-profile school shooting incidents demonstrated low levels of interest regarding violent video games. Only 20% played violent games, compared to 70% of the other students.
Read this article from Business insider about psychological effect of games
The augmented reality game Pokémon GO initially received positive attention for encouraging players to leave their homes and engage in outdoor physical activity while searching for virtual characters. However, over time, concerns emerged regarding its unintended social consequences. Incidents of conflict and aggression were reported, involving not only children but also adults. Additionally, there were documented cases of criminal activity, with thieves targeting areas heavily populated by in-game characters to steal from unsuspecting players. Reports also surfaced of distracted drivers focusing on the game while behind the wheel, leading to near accidents in so-called ‘Pokémon hotspots.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) proposed in 2018 that computer game addiction should become an official diagnosis in the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) system, and by 2019 it was passed by the majority of member states. The diagnosis took effect from 1 January 2022. To be diagnosed as a computer game addict, the following three points must be fulfilled over a period of 12 months or more:
- Lack of control over gaming regarding, for example, frequency, intensity, duration and ability to stop gaming
- Gaming is prioritised before other normal activities and interests in life
- The gaming continues or increases despite the negative consequences and affects normal everyday activities such as school/work, family life and social life in a negative way
It is estimated that approximately 3% of individuals meet the diagnostic criteria for gaming addiction, with the majority being male. However, as gaming disorder has only recently been recognised as a formal diagnosis, comprehensive research in this area remains limited.
While many youths engage in gaming, this behaviour can be more commonly called excessive or in some cases addictive.
The signs that a person may be addicted to gaming are:
Constantly thinking about Internet activities, even when you should be studying or working or being with your family
Psychosomatic symptoms when you do not have access to the Internet
Problems with self-control
Excessively using the Internet to the point that it ruins everyday life
Having no interest in other activities or relationships with other people.
Another kind of addiction is FOMO, fear of missing out. The fear of missing out on things that are happening is a type of Internet addiction that became apparent around the year 2000. This type of addiction is broadly defined and covers many types of media, from Internet shopping, virtual sex and porn, games, social media, online gambling, i.e. anything that causes you to get stimulation.
This type of addiction is not a “real addiction” such as gambling or gaming addiction, as it does not have the symptoms that are defined as addiction. However, it can still cause psychological problems such as depression and anxiety because you feel that your own life is a failure.
Are you in that category? Read more about Fear of Missing Out under “resources” in this topic.
Loot boxes and gaming addiction
A loot box is essentially a game package you buy where you don’t know its content. A kind of mystery box. In some games, you can improve as a player with such boxes. For example, in FIFA games, loot boxes may contain valuable players, the issue lies in the fact that you don’t know in advance which players you will receive, introducing an element of chance akin to gambling.
In Counter Strike, the box works in the same way, but experience from players who have bought such boxes shows that there are only two to four good weapons in a total of 10,000 boxes, so this box will also be a gamble.
More and more games are free, so the way the company makes money is for someone to buy such mystery boxes. This is called, pay to win, since you can increase your chance of winning by paying.
Clash royale, an app on the phone, is an example of such a game. When you buy a pass royal, the prizes get better, but you still must play to win them. You can also buy chests where you know roughly what you’re getting.
In Fortnite, the box is called Battle pass. There you get clothes, skins and dances so you become a little “cooler”. But you don’t get better. Since it is often such loot boxes that monetise the game for the company that created the game, you can be sure that it will be very difficult to win.
New UK research shows that 93% of all children play video games, and 40% of them buy mystery boxes.
Young men are a typical target audience. Studies have shown that there is a greater chance of excessive uses among younger boys with lower education. Unfortunately, the typical buyer is often those who can least afford to buy so the indebtedness can be a problem.
The research report concludes that these mystery boxes work in the same way as gambling and can therefore be just as addictive. Japan, Belgium and the Netherlands are some of the countries that have banned such mystery boxes.
What can you do to prevent yourself from becoming addicted?
- Have a limit on how many mystery boxes you can buy every week
- If you buy once, make sure your credit card is not saved in the game to make it easy to buy more
- Remind yourself that chances of getting the best boxes with valuable things are slim
- Remember that it is only a game, don't be afraid of missing out, FOMO (fear of missing out).
What are protective factors for addiction?
Fortunately, there are protective factors that can prevent addiction. It is important for parents to know about these protective factors, so that they can help their children stay safe online.
Research points to the following protective factors:
- Age of first exposure to technology. The younger the person is the less control they have over how rationally they can think about whether it is a good idea to use technology. Unfortunately, many children are exposed to games early, and the younger they are, the more prone they are to addiction.
- Parental involvement is important, as it enables caregivers to support and guide children’s engagement with digital activities while also helping to monitor their usage.
- Self-control and self-mastery are important traits to establish when using technology, these traits can be passed on to children.
- The availability of the activity. The more accessible the devices the easier it is to become addicted.
Who is prone to addiction?
Are some people more prone to addiction than others? Who becomes addicted? Research by Dr Kevin McCauley shows that there are some factors that influence addiction:
- Choice (motivation, insight into what creates dependence and the ability to regulate one’s own activities)
- Stress (those who are exposed to stress are more easily affected, this can be anything from conflicts in the family, among friends, or at school)
- Memories (good experiences with a substance or experience that you associate with something positive makes it easier to repeat. Memories also contain triggers that make you feel withdrawal symptoms when you see a PC, for example)
- Reward (how strongly you are addicted to the reward depends on how much tolerance you have developed for it, the more experience you have, the more you need it)
- Twin studies show that 40-60% of vulnerability is linked to genes, but how you reinforce the habits by your behaviour plays an important role.
We see that children who have problems at home, for example with parents who argue a lot, do not have friends or are not good at school in some cases flee into the world of games. In the world of games, they get positive experiences that make them seek this instead of real life. It is therefore important to look at the whole life situation of young people who play a lot. Is there anything you can do so that they can better cope with their lives? Maybe they can start a sport where they can make friends and master new activities or get help with homework?
However, gaming addiction is not solely influenced by individual traits, the gaming industry intentionally designs games using psychological formats aimed at maximising user engagement which can contribute to addictive behaviours. One of the factors in games themselves, is that players get feedback quickly. This causes the brain to respond positively, and dopamine is released into the system which gives a feel-good response. Research shows that winning rewards may also effect the players mood. There are many types of rewards, and some examples are shown below.
Social comparison can increase motivation, but in some games, you can also compete with yourself
Control, players like to feel in control of their actions. If a game tries to control you too much or limits their choices, they might get frustrated and stop playing.
Light, graphics and sound can also lead to addiction because it stimulates the brain as a reward system.
Preventing losses can be more important than working for more prizes, as the brain’s aversion to loss is often stronger than the urge to w
Resources
Read more about Fear of Missing out under “resources” here:
Read more about teen girls and depression here:
Read more about advice on screen time in different European countries:
Read more about how the European public health alliance views screen time:
Read this link from Researchgate about how violent games and gaming is NOT related.
Read this article from Business insider about psychological effect of games
Practical exercise
Individual task: Ask yourself, and be honest:
- How much time do you spend on social media? Check your phone.
- Have you ever postponed something because you were on the phone?
- What can you do instead of being on social media? What do you like to do?
Group discussion and brainstorming: What can you do to avoid spending too much time on digital media?
Topic 3 – How screens affect adults
Adults and technology
Although gaming is more common among younger people, the number of adult gamers is steadily increasing. This is partly because video games have been around long enough for people in their 40s and 50s to have grown up with them. Many adults report feeling guilty or dissatisfied with the amount of time they spend on their mobile devices. Respons Analyse conducted a survey for VG, a Norwegian newspaper, in 2018 with 1,000 participants, which shows that almost half of the respondents have negative feelings regarding their mobile phone usage. Those who admit that they are mobile dependent are parents with children under the age of 16 – and young people under the age of 30. Additionally, for further exploration on the article, use the link below.
Addiction to gaming and digital devices can often be linked to an inability to tolerate boredom or a lack of self-generated stimulation. The University of Virginia had a research project in 2014 that showed that students may have become reliant on external sources to fill the gap. But the researchers took it a step further by looking at what adults did when they were given the choice between doing nothing or using technology. 67% of men and 20% of women preferred gaming.
Adults and gambling
64% of Norway’s population aged between 16 years and 74 years have played at least one gambling game in the last 12 months, i.e. 2.5 million people. For those who are not addicted to gambling, it may seem simple to stop. For those who develop an addiction, quitting can be extremely challenging due to the powerful psychological and behavioural dependencies involved.
The University of Bergen published a survey in 2020 showing the type of people that could be classed as having addiction tendencies.
- men
- singles
- those who care for 1-2 children living at home
- those with low education and income
- those who are incapacitated/unemployed/rehabilitation etc
- those who were born in Asia, Africa, South or Central America
These people have a higher percentage of becoming a problem gambler. Gambling can be a fun activity if one does not become addicted. Most people who gamble, play for fun or to win. But those who become addicted also have other reasons to gamble that may seem unreasonable to those who do not become addicted. What is interesting is that those who are compulsive gamblers also gamble to forget about problems. It gives them a feeling of euphoria, and they feel like they can gamble to make up for previous losses.
When a person has a positive experience while gambling, your brain releases a substance called dopamine which gives you a feeling of happiness. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that, among other things, produces a feeling of pleasure, expectation of pleasure and motivation and reward. Because you want to keep repeating the pleasurable feeling, you want to play more and more. Thus, this part of the brain is activated faster than the frontal lobe, which is your logical brain, so that it does not get to make decisions anymore. What is also frightening is that the reward system changes the memories associated with what is right and wrong, so that the frontal lobe can no longer distinguish between right and wrong.
The brain changes with addiction and tricks itself into thinking you need the drug you’re addicted to. The drug can be playing poker and winning. Gambling addiction is when the player no longer has control over their own gambling, and it is exactly the same dopamine release mechanism you get from shopping and social media consumption. See module 3, chapter about Dopamine and addiction.
Resources
Read this page for more tips for adults: https://fortune.com/well/article/screen-time-over-lifespan/
Practical exercise
Challenge yourself
Is it really that bad to be alone with your own thoughts?
Can you try to go a day without social media or email? 24 hours? 48 hours?
Module Summary
The DIGIAWARE Training Toolkit Module 6 aims to equip teachers and trainers with the knowledge and skills to understand the beneficial and problematic uses of screens across different age groups. The module covers the impact of screen use across different ages. For small children, research indicates that screen use negatively affects brain development. The World Health Organisation recommends limited screen time for young children.
For older children and youths, excessive screen use can lead to depression, anxiety, and aggression, with brain scans showing similarities to drug addiction. Gender differences reveal that girls are more affected by social media, leading to higher rates of depression. There is no direct link between violent games and real-life violence, but gaming addiction is a recognized diagnosis, with preventive measures including parental involvement and self-control training.
Adults also face screen addiction, often linked to boredom and the inability to self-stimulate. Gambling addiction is prevalent among adults, with certain demographics being more susceptible. The brain’s reward system changes with addiction, making it difficult to distinguish right from wrong and increasing the need for the addictive behaviour to achieve the same level of satisfaction. The module also discusses the concept of loot boxes in games, which can be addictive and are like gambling. Protective factors against addiction include the age of first exposure to technology, parental involvement, self-control, and the availability of the activity.
Module 6: Quiz
Glossary of terms
Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that are in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Source: DigCompEdu.
A hacker is a person who uses computer programming to overcome a problem or challenge within a computer system. While the term hacker often carries a negative connotation, not all hacking involves criminal or malicious activity.
Bibliography and references
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them. Project number: 2023-1-NO01-KA220-ADU-
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