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Do you know how much time your children spend on a mobile and that using it can make them dumber? That modern technologies are addictive and a dependence develops on them? And is there any way out at all?
A neurologist’s opinion
We spoke with neurologist Martin Jan Stránský about how modern technologies affect our children’s brains.
You are a major critic of modern technologies, so I have to ask: How do you use them personally? Do you limit yourself in this regard at all?
I don’t particularly limit myself, because I have a very busy schedule, so I can’t spend the whole day on a computer even if I wanted to. I use a computer essentially only to write articles, to look up information for some article or book and the like. I’m not on social networks at all myself, with the exception of Facebook. With the help of an assistant I use it as a forum for discussing relevant topics that interest me and, I think, our society as well.
Interestingly, not only did it succeed, but the discussion is very civilized. I am definitely not a slave to my mobile. I turn it off and I don’t check it regularly the way most people do.
Does using the phone lower IQ?
You claim that the population becomes dumber by using modern technologies and its IQ decreases. Why do you think that is?
We are talking about mobile phones and about people who use a screen in social situations or play video games. Generally speaking, it’s because it’s an unnatural, inhuman form of communication that didn’t exist for two hundred thousand years; it’s flat and turns some machine — that is, a device — into a relational partner.
Instead of people forming relationships with other people. Although it’s true that at the other end of the imaginary wire there is another person, communication is disproportionately simplified and flattened.
Simplifies
There is no open dialogue nor problem solving, which form the basis of success in life. If I disagree with something or if I’m bored in the real world, I can’t just switch it off the way you can with modern technologies. Moreover, there is a total absence of nonverbal communication, which is evolutionarily given and important for the brain. That means you don’t hear the voice, you don’t perceive the face and you don’t look at the hands. The so-called nonverbal signals are completely missing there.
And I’d like to emphasize that this is certainly not just my opinion, but scientifically confirmed facts. As a neurologist I merely bring them together, creating the synthesis that I present. It is 100% scientifically confirmed that the use of mobile phones, social networks and computer monitors can have predominantly very negative effects.
You say “predominantly” — so are there any positive impacts of modern technologies on the population?
They are useful in cases where someone is searching for certain information that they then use to make a better decision. For example, when someone cannot choose between two options and needs some additional information to decide. In such a situation modern technologies can be useful. Naturally, for example I prepare a lecture much faster when I use a computer than when I search for information only in books.
France banned phones
France banned mobile phones in all schools for all children up to sixteen years old. Children cannot have a mobile even in class, they must leave it outside …
Does the influence of modern technologies on adult and children’s brains differ?
Children are much more susceptible than adults. Our earliest experiences and impressions determine how and about what we think in the future.
This is also why supranational organizations such as the World Health Organization or the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued recommendations that no small child should have access to any screen. Only when they start school should they have at most one hour per day. Over time at most two hours per day and only under supervision, meaning under the oversight of parents or teachers.
That seems practically unthinkable to me. Currently most first-graders already have a mobile and their parents praise that they have an overview of their whereabouts and that this increases children’s safety …
A child should not have a mobile phone
No child should have a mobile at all. Not a single study anywhere in the world has proven that it leads to anything good. Period. The argument about increased safety — that a child must have a phone in order to be “checked on” — is a deception. It arose in an increasingly nervous society, which is commercially guided and manipulated to create distorted priorities and notions.
How do you view teaching using modern technologies? For example, situations where notebooks, tablets and computers are used in schools.
No study has shown that if we learn with the help of a computer we would know more or that our test results would be better. On the contrary, a number of studies have shown that when learning from paper we achieve much better results in tests. This was confirmed by dividing pupils into two groups.
The same teachers taught the same subjects, one group used a computer for that and the other a traditional textbook. Those who learned with paper and a textbook consistently had better grades and breadth of knowledge than the group with computers. So modern technologies are a markedly double-edged sword. It’s more or less similar to a poison that mostly harms, but in certain smaller doses can be effective for isolated cases.
False impression
But the main threat of technology is that it gives us the false impression that we are, in quotes, better by having it, that is, by having a better and faster computer or a smaller phone that fits in our pocket. When we think about it, all modern technological inventions — and I’m not talking about industry and science now, but about those used by the general public — that are worth anything have already been invented. Modern technologies bring us nothing new or good in terms of social life, only a modification of what already exists, i.e., something faster, smaller, etc. In reality they do not improve the quality of our lives and certainly do not give us a greater sense of happiness. On the contrary, we become dependent on them. Meanwhile those who produce them make money by buying and selling our privacy.
This is probably related to the worsening expressive abilities of today’s children …
The vocabulary of today’s children is indeed shrinking to the point that they are not able to comprehend what they read, because the brain absorbs information and interprets it in the way it receives it. So if children and people read only short sentences of text messages, they will of course begin to think in this way as well. That is also one of the reasons why people who are very active on mobile phones and social networks cannot even express themselves properly. And associated with that is that they don’t know how to solve problems either.
How to protect children from the influence of modern technology
That sounds very depressing. Is there, in your view, a way parents could protect their children from the influence of modern technologies? Or at least limit this influence?
It’s necessary to point out that this is a dead end — and I think that’s already happening. After all, our interview is proof of that. Hundreds of thousands of different articles are already dealing with this topic, and there are also various initiatives and supranational organizations addressing it. Fortunately this topic is also reaching the level of legislation. For example, the French government banned mobile phones in all schools for all children up to sixteen years old. Children cannot have a mobile even in class; they must leave it outside. And the French know very well why they are doing it. It is necessary to constantly highlight that all the companies that sell these technologies are also selling your privacy.
But the main thing is that parents must realize that their primary task in life is to raise the child. And if they give the child a machine, it certainly will not raise them as they would. In this regard parents are absolutely failing. They think that through modern technologies they are offering their child something, because today a child must not be bored even for a moment. But neurologically the truth is exactly the opposite. A child should be bored so that they come up with other and new things. So they learn to play and to interact with other children. Parents often do it also to have more time and earn more money, not to focus on raising their child. And last but not least parents should also contribute to creating a negative stereotype.
Negative stereotype
This is another thing that is starting to happen slowly — namely a certain self-censorship. A child who constantly looks at a phone is not respected by other children and may even be excluded from the group, because such a dependent child repels others. In short, overuse of modern technologies needs to become in society something of a taboo. Similar to how, for example, in the nineties smoking became taboo among young people. Not for health reasons, but simply because it was no longer in. Smokers were perceived as someone who smells and has wrinkles. This negative stereotype began mainly in America and west of us. Thanks to this negative stereotype society significantly reduced smoking. And exactly such a negative stereotype needs to be built regarding playing video games and other activities associated with modern technologies.
So a mobile phone is like a casino. You walk by, it’s flashing there, something is happening inside. You stop at the door and either go on, or you look at the door for a while, but sooner or later you’ll enter that casino to try it out. And then it is quite possible that you’ll stay there forever. It is very important to realize that this is a dangerous social bad habit. The fact that most people do it doesn’t mean it’s good at all; on the contrary, it means there’s a need to get out of this dead end.
