The Battle with Screen Time

Entertainment and the Developing Brain

This sub-heading "Entertainment and the Developing Brain" is from a book titled “The God-Shaped Brain” by Timothy R. Jennings.  This section of the book especially gave me such eye-opening information that has definitely stuck with me.  But I had trouble describing in my own words, so I decided to go back to the book and copy that section.  Here it goes:

One of the unheralded factors contributing to the rise of fear and psychiatric disorders is the high prevalence of theatrical entertainment, including television watching, especially among children.  Theatrical entertainment refers to programming designed, through pretense or artificial enactments, to cause emotional reactions, while for the most part disengaging critical reasoning.  Earlier we explored normal brain development.  We discovered that during the first eight years of life, the brain is busy killing off synaptic connections by the hundreds of millions.  Neural circuits that are used are kept.  Those left idle either fail to develop or are deleted. Understanding this normal physiological process is the key to understanding the devastation theatrical TV has wrought on the brain.  

Theatrical programming, which is not to be confused with educational programming, has as its primary effect to fire the limbic system while simultaneously diminishing prefrontal cortex activity.  Theatrical entertainment is designed to get an emotional response from the audience, and the more powerful the emotional reaction the “better” the program.  Such programs want to get you to laugh, or cry, or be afraid, aroused, angry, irritated or frustrated, while simultaneously turning off your critical thinking. 

I have some friends who loved to watch the popular television program called 24…(omitted) When I dismissed the plot as ridiculous, my friends responded, “You’re not supposed to think about it. You’re not supposed to reason.  You’re supposed to suspend logic.” In other words, to enjoy the program, I had to turn off my reasoning (DLPFC) and then allow my limbic system to run ungoverned and experience the roller coaster of anxious emotions the show was designed to elicit.  

Theatrical programming has a similar impact on most human brains, but children between birth and eight years are particularly vulnerable because of the massive modification of neural circuitry occurring during this time.  Studies have shown that the more theatrical entertainment children view during the first eight years of life, the greater their risk of attention, focus and concentration problems (dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex), and the higher the rates of violence, impulsive behavior, sexual acting out, and increased anxiety and mood problems.  

Sadly , many parents, the mainstream media and even church groups have wrongly concluded that this problem is entirely content-driven.  The old adage “garbage in, garbage out” has been used by many a well-meaning preacher to discourage bad content.  While it is absolutely appropriate to avoid bad content, the problem with theatrical entertainment is not primarily content-driven.  The issue is a neural-developmental one.  In other words, watching G-rated theatrical entertainment will still damage the developing brain. 

Today is March 30th, 2024.  I haven’t been writing here because I started working on another writing project on the topic of personal finance, and then the past two months were my busy season at work.  As mentioned in another chapter, we decided to implement some household rules and of course there were some rules involving screen time.  We have not been strict with the rules to be honest, giving them more time than what was agreed upon.  

While I was still in bed this morning, as happens almost every Saturday morning, Kayden and Brooklyn began asking to allow them screen time, and when I said no, they kept complaining about how mommy is better because she would let them, and they wouldn’t stop for about 10-15 minutes.  So I called all three of them and said something along these lines:

The reason I am not letting you have screen time is because I love you too much and I care too much about you. If I didn’t love you, I would let you watch screens all day, because that will make my life so much easier with no one bothering me and not having to deal with you fighting each other.  Every time you watch something on screens, the growth of your brain is being hindered, and I think you behaving this way has something to do with you watching too much screen.  If you cannot accept “no” as a “no” and keep showing me signs of addiction, I will have to change the rule to zero screen time.  I want you to become mentally and psychologically healthy people and that’s why I don’t let you watch too much screen. 

They probably didn’t really care about the “brain development” or the “being psychologically healthy” parts, but I’m sure they got the message that if they show signs of addiction, they will be having no screen time at all.  For now that will be good enough, I think.  Then after they left my room, they started playing with each other, mostly laughing together.  Noelle has a little over 2 years until she goes to high school, and there won’t be many sights where I will see them “playing” with each other.  One hour spent on screens equals one hour lost of building the lasting memories of childhood memories with sisters. 

Photo by Souvik Banerjee on Unsplash