Excessive Screen Time Hinders Child's Academic Performance

 

Excessive screen time has become a pervasive issue in modern childhood development, with unspeakable disastrous implications for academic achievement and overall wellbeing. While the proliferation of these technologies are useful to mankind, it has turned out to be a colossal challenge confronting us daily. The use of televisions, computers, and mobile phones has so much adverse effects on children, teenagers, and adolescents globally. The children are helplessly addicted to these technologies, thereby affecting their physical, mental, social, and cognitive development. It has been proved beyond all reasonable doubts that excessive screen time hinders children's academic performance and also affects them in other ways such as:

1. Excessive screen time leads to a decrease in attention span, making it very difficult for children to focus or concentrate on their school works.

2. It impairs memory and learning abilities since it readily affects the brain's ability to process and retain information.

3. Excessive screen time limits children's opportunities to engage in hands-on and problem-solving activities which are essential for developing critical thinking (reasoning) skills.

4. It leads to reduced reading comprehension and vocabulary skills.

5. It causes increased distraction to school lessons, thereby making the children unable to successfully complete home works and other school assignments.

6. Excessive screen time is a direct killer of motivation, determination, and zeal to excel in education. It kills children's interest in learning and make them empty entities.

7. It causes addiction to televisions, laptops, smart phones, and other cordless devices. Addiction has never been an easy war to fight and win. As it is difficult to win war against drug and substance addictions, smoking and drunkenness, sexual practices, and others, that is exactly how it is to overcome excessive screen time addiction. That is why every hand should be on deck to win this war against excessive screen time addiction! Children who are addicted to excessive screen time cannot perform excellently academically. No, they cannot at all.

8. Excessive screen time kills social skills, thereby making it challenging for children to interact with peers and teachers at schools.

9. Excessive screen time has been linked to decreased empathy and social engagements and understanding.

10. It obviously increases the rate of cyber bullying since the addiction regularly confines the child or young person to the screen where the daredevil cyber bullies and online predators can access their victims easily. 

11. Excessive screen time has been linked to an increased risk of obesity and other related health concerns because the addicted person defied participation in both indoor and outdoor games which can give physical fitness. Therefore, the person experiences retardation in balanced physical development.

12. It disrupts established sleep patterns in children and young people, thereby retarding their physical growth and health.

13. Excessive screen time has also been linked to premarital or illicit sexual relationships among grown up children, teenagers, and adolescents since they can have access to pornographic videos in the screens daily. Most times, when the parents are asleep after hectic working hours in the day, these screen addicted children go to hideouts within the compound where they spend endless hours every night on pornographic videos. In the morning when other children and young people are preparing for school, they will be sleeping. If woken up by parents and forced to leave for school, they end up sleeping during classroom lessons. This kind of child is a problem to educators and entire school authority. He cannot have high grades in the school classroom tests and examinations because he does not have time for reading. He is just a shadow of a human being! This is not the type of child you should have as a parent.

International agencies are concerned about the spate of excessive screen time among the children and young people. Hence, they have made significant contributions to curb down the menace of excessive screen time and addiction to the technology among our children and young people. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) has established guidelines for children's screen time, recommending zero screen time for children under 2 years, and limited screen time for children aged between 2 and 5 years old. The UNICEF has launched a programme to promote online safety among children and emphasized the need for responsible screen time use among children. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has provided guidance on screen time management, suggesting parental restrictions and screen-free zones. Not only that, the American Academy of Paediatricians (AAP) has given guidelines for children's media engagements, emphasizing the importance of parents' involvement and monitoring the children's screen time engagements. The European Union's Guidelines for a Healthy Use of Screens by Children (developed by EU's Joint Research Centre) established guidelines providing recommendations for parents, caregivers, educators, and policymakers, on providing healthy screen use habits among children in all Europe. This effort aims to create a safer and healthier online environment for children, and reducing risks associated with excessive screen time. The US Government has used its Parental Control and Education Programme to recommend that parents and caregivers set limits on screen time, monitor the children's activities, and encourage physical activities such as indoor and outdoor games, and other hobbies among the children. In US, some schools have implemented programmes to promote responsible screen use. The US National Institute of Health (NIH) has funded research on the effects of screen time on children's physical and mental health, and academic performance, with the aim to inform policy and practice. The impact of excessive screen time on the global society is better imagined than told. 

All over the world, children, teenagers, and adolescents are found always holding smart phones in their hands, and navigating from one site to the other. They do this in the morning, afternoon, and night daily. They do not agree to switch off their phones even when they are in the Church. As the sermon is going on, they are playing games and chatting with their friends. Children and young people of this era do not read their books as it used to be in the past. The screen technology has totally replaced the love for reading. They cannot differentiate between the Parts of Speech and the Figures of Speech. Neither do they know the difference between chalk and cheese. Education has fallen to the lowest ebb globally as a result of the proliferation of technology and excessive screen time. The problem is not the technology itself, but the wrong habit of using it. There was a day I met two boys (siblings) in a business centre. They were between 8 and 11 years old. They came to take passport pictures either for their international passports processing or school admission. When they were asked to sit down for capturing by the camera, they declined because they were still busy playing games in their smart phones. Their indulgent mother was not able to persuade them to get up for the capturing. It took the intervention of people in the business centre before they left their games to proceed with what they came for. If these boys could be so addicted to the screen to behave that way in public, it obviously means that they have no time for reading at home. It also means that their parents, especially their mother, are inactive and indulgent as well. We all saw the true power of screen addiction and the glaring evidence of poor parenting in that family within that short space of time. These boys were just like a rudderless ship drifting towards an iceberg! It is meaningless to have children that we cannot raise up properly. 

In summary, by setting limits on excessive screen time and promoting healthy screen use habits, parents, caregivers, and educators can help children achieve academic success and develop essential life skills.

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