"The Catcher in the Rye": a child, his brain and gadgets

The picture of the modern world is significantly different from what it was just twenty years ago. The primary direction of societal development has become its rapid transformation into a digital one. New technologies have changed our time and space beyond recognition. A significant portion of a person's life is now spent in a new paradigm filled with information flows. Most people, especially the young, live in the “world of networks.”

“A car is not a luxury...” But what about a gadget?

Gadgets have become part of everyday life. They have replaced many things: entertainment, communication, notebooks, reference books, cameras, video cameras, a movie theater, an alarm clock... The smartphone, so convenient that it fits in your hand or pocket and accompanies its owner around the clock, has become a cult object and lost its initial essence of being a means of communication that is comfortable and practical, without any burden of “status” (finding out whose gadget is more expensive and prestigious becomes a serious issue for children). For some teenagers, a gadget turns into a living creature more significant and understandable than the people, animals, and nature around them...

Signs of Trouble

According to a study by the Pew Research Center (Information Center, USA), 92% of teenagers (aged 13 to 17) go online daily, with over half (56%) of them connecting the internet multiple times a day, and 24% being online almost constantly, day and night. Children (on average) spend more time in the virtual world than in school. Going out to sports field, reading a physical book instead of an electronic one, learning a musical instrument - all of these have been replaced by social networks and the virtual world today.

In connection with this, scientists, educators, and medical professionals are concerned about the impact of gadgets on children’s development and health. Experts confirm a connection between the time a child spends with a tablet or smartphone and adverse changes in their brain. Dr. Jenny Radesky, a pediatrician at the Boston Medical Center in the USA, believes that smartphones steal time from real-life interactions with parents, peers, and friends. Social contacts are the determining factor in a child’s brain development, and this is especially important in the first five years of life.

Gadgets and a Child's Brain: ‘Digital aborigines,’ ‘Digital Stupidity,’ ‘Digital Dementia’?

Many experts studying a child’s dependence on gadgets come to somber conclusions about changes in children’s brains who, at an early age, get their hands on smartphones and spend most of their time with them, referring to them as ‘digital aborigines.’ The consequences for a child’s brain are termed ‘digital stupidity.’

Scientists at Leiden University in the Netherlands have found that during adolescence, there is an increase in the activity of the striatum in the brain (an anatomical structure of the cerebral cortex related to the basal ganglia of the hemispheres), which is the most favorable time for learning. This conclusion was confirmed by an experiment involving children and teenagers, totaling 232 individuals. Teenagers showed the highest test results, but gadgets take away their opportunity to display and develop their cognitive abilities.

The author of the book The Digital Cretin Factory ('La fabrique du cretin digital'), published in 2019, neuropsychologist Michel Desmurget from France, noted many adverse consequences of children’s constant use of gadgets:

•  Delay in the development of toddlers (speech, motor skills, memory).
•  Inability to concentrate.
•  Sleep disturbances.
•  Deterioration of creative abilities.
•  Mental disorders.

Over the past two decades, many countries have noticed a decline in IQ (intelligence quotient - determined by special tests) among young people. This is supported by statistics in Finland and Norway, where an IQ test is required for military service. Progressive intellectual degradation has already received the name “digital dementia.”

Researchers are exploring various avenues to find the causes of this phenomenon. Some scientists attribute the negative consequences to the deteriorating environmental situation affecting the development of children’s brains. Others explain the problems by suggesting that the IQ test itself is outdated, and the new generation possesses qualities that it does not measure - nonlinear thinking, the ability to switch rapidly, and the ability to engage in effective parallel activities. However, among many scientists, there is a growing belief in the harmful effects of various types of gadgets on the normal development of a child’s brain.

Let’s pay attention to the words of M. Desmurget: “If you tell a young child the name of a color, for example, ‘green,’ three times in a row, they will learn that word. If they hear the same word from a screen, according to various studies, they need to hear it twenty to sixty times to grasp the new concept.”

David Anderson, Ph.D., director of the Center for Behavioral Disorders at the Child Mind Institute in the United States, believes that it is necessary to limit the amount of time children spend with smartphones. Infants should not be exposed to either television or parental gadgets, and children aged two to five can play with a phone but with breaks and a maximum of two hours a day. Otherwise, there is a risk of delayed speech development.

Delaney Ruston, a psychologist and director of the documentary ‘Screenagers,’ explaining her motives for making the film, says: “I want every parent to know two fundamental scientific facts:

1.  The part of the brain that makes a person human – the prefrontal cortex – grows slowly and only fully develops by the age of twenty.
2.  The time spent in front of a screen releases the hormone dopamine, and we are never as susceptible to its influence as in adolescence.”

D. Ruston says that the amount of time a child spends with a smartphone (i.e., the amount of dopamine released into the bloodstream) can seriously affect the brain. In an interview with The New York Times, she talks about a study on the impact of video games on children. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain of a child spending up to three hours a day in front of a screen resembles the MRI of a drug addict.

German neurobiologist Manfred Spitzer, the author of the term “digital stupidity,” draws attention to the substitution that will affect a child’s brain. He believes that passive function, and sometimes the absence of cognitive activity (all intellectual and creative work that should be done by the child themselves, is shifted to gadgets or computers), leads to severe consequences. The emergence of an almost narcotic dependence on a smartphone, serious memory impairment, and the death of nerve cells are the path to reduced learning ability.

Facts and Recommendations Worth Considering

1.  Bill Gates, the creator of Microsoft, allowed his children to handle their first gadgets at the age of 14.
2.  Technological progress cannot be stopped, but a balance can be maintained. In 2019 The World Health Organization (WHO) released recommendations for parents, educators, and doctors to help maintain a balance in the child-gadget dilemma. Children under the age of one are not recommended to spend time in front of a television or smartphone screen, and children aged two to five should not exceed one hour per day.
3.  David Anderson and experts at the Child Mind Institute suggest that the age of ten is an optimal age for a child’s first smartphone. However, parents should not only control the time a child spends on the smartphone but also monitor the information they receive from the internet.
4.  The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its recommendations, understanding the importance of the issue: there should not be any bans, but agreements with the child are necessary: breaks for an hour, gadget-free time for enjoyable activities, rewards, incentives if the child detaches from video games, spends time with loved ones, walks the dog, communicates... Parent behavior sets an example for the child. There are many recommendations, but if adults want their children to be healthy and successful, these recommendations should be implemented.
5.  Successful countries, successful schools, successful families have already found approaches and solutions for various situations: a child does not bring gadgets to school; if he does, he keeps them in an individual box during lessons. Families maintain a comfortable environment where there is room for real communication, joint games, kindness, and gadgets. Children grow up healthy, modern, able to plan their lives.

World-famous American writer Jerome David Salinger, in his novel The Catcher in the Rye uses biblical motifs to explain through his character, teenager Holden Caulfield: “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.” Holden imagines himself as the protector of children playing in a field of rye, making sure they don't fall off the cliff, symbolizing his desire to protect their innocence and preserve their childhood.