A leading child psychiatrist has urged parents to get off their phones and turn off their screens to help to protect their children’s mental health.
Paul Bester, a consultant psychiatrist at Priory hospital in Roehampton, southwest London, said that parents needed to be aware that too much screen time was detrimental to their children’s psychological health and neurological development. They should try to set a good example by limiting their own screen time, he said.
“It is very difficult for parents to set an example when they are constantly on their mobile phones, and children learn by copying behaviour. It leads to disconnected family relationships, little quality time together and children do not learn essential and subtle emotional cues and complex supportive social behaviour,” he said.
The effects of the screens themselves could also be serious, he said. “Excessive screen time has not only a psychological impact but also a biological impact on neurodevelopment. It is believed that excessive exposure to screen time is contributing to depression rates and other symptoms of mental illness.”
It also led children to think that events in life could be controlled and the results were instantaneous, he said. Important emotional skills were undermined as children lost the ability to socialise and began to think that they could exercise control and receive instant gratification.
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“The paradox is that the internet and smartphones are also used to enhance connectedness; people have short bursts of conversation whenever they like and are often in constant communication, but technology can also facilitate isolationist behaviour,” he said.
Mental health problems among young people are on the rise, with digital media held partly to blame, but services have been cut in the past five years and children are waiting for months and even years for straightforward treatments.
Studies on the effects of the digital revolution on children are only now coming to the fore. One of the biggest, a study by Public Health England (PHE), concluded that children who spent more than four hours a day in front of the television or a computer screen were more likely to develop anxiety or depression.
“The greater the time spent in front of the screen, the greater the negative impact on behavioural and emotional issues relating to development,” said Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at PHE. Too much screen time limited opportunities for physical activity and face-to-face interaction with friends and family: key factors in reducing childhood anxiety, he said.
Dr Bester said that online media and computer games were more alluring to children than, for example, going on a family picnic or to a local restaurant with their parents, which is why limits on screen time may be needed.