Digital media can be toxic, but your kid will likely use it anyway. Can you make it healthier?

By Kara Alaimo, CNN

(CNN) — In case you hadn’t heard from everyone that digital media can be bad for kids, new research warns just how harmful it can be to their health.

About 20% of instances of depression and 15% of obesity cases in young people are associated with excessive screen time, according to a meta-analysis of 121 global studies of children and digital media published Sunday as part of a series of papers in the medical journal The Lancet.

The research adds to the understanding of the extent to which kids’ digital media use has become a public health problem that health authorities should govern and regulate, said Louise Holly, lead author of the research on kids and digital media. It shouldn’t just fall on parents to solve these problems, said Holly, policy and research coordinator at the Digital Transformations for Health Lab, a Geneva, Switzerland-based global consortium.

Not all kids face the same risks: Young people who have mental health vulnerabilities, less offline support and lower digital literacy are more likely to be harmed, according to the research.

The research utilized studies that often self-reported kids’ screen use, and many found that digital media use was associated with harms but couldn’t definitively say it caused them, Holly said.

Using digital media also causes far more cases of adverse health outcomes than beneficial ones in youth, according to the research.

Still, there are ways it can benefit kids’ health. It can give them outlets to achieve autonomy, explore their identities, find information, entertain themselves and make social connections, the research found.

It can have positive impacts on children when it “fulfills what they want it to do,” Holly said, and is used purposefully with support and supervision from caregivers, parents or guardians.

Since no amount of warnings seems to get kids off digital media, I recommend focusing on how it can be healthy for kids — and helping them avoid the risks.

What a teen brain is like

Start by explaining to young people what’s happening in their heads, said Dr. Nicole Amoyal Pensak, a clinical psychologist and founder of Atlantic Coast Mind and Body in Little Silver, New Jersey. She was not involved in the research.

“They’re in a specific period of both vulnerability and opportunity because their brain is developing rapidly,” she said. “They have more power and control than they think.”

That’s because brains are very plastic in youth. Parts of their brains that kids use get strengthened, while those they don’t use atrophy.

Try explaining it like driving, Pensak said. Adults want kids to be in the driver’s seat. Teach them “how to build new roads but get rid of old roads that are not serving them,” she said.

How do you do that?

Give them prunes

Pensak gives kids in her practice prunes to taste. Most don’t like them, so they try to avoid them in the future. That’s how we prune things from our brains, too, she said.

“When you don’t like something, or when something doesn’t make you feel good, you try to get rid of it,” she said — or at least reduce it. To figure out what to prune, teach kids to pay attention to how they think, act and feel when using digital media, Pensak said.

If a girl is comparing her body with others on social media, it’s time to reset.

“They need to not focus on that, not go over those roads,” Pensak said. If they do, their brain will learn to think that way and it will affect their mood and behaviors.

Be a shepherd helping kids find their way rather than someone who only controls access to their devices, Pensak said. You can do so by asking questions about their social media use and consuming content together.

Take these roads

Parents should also help kids explore roads that can be healthy for them.

Digital media shouldn’t replace in-person interactions, but it can complement them by helping children plan social gatherings or connect with like-minded people (as long as they do so safely).

It can also help young people learn new things, so yes to videos that teach them how to crochet, otherwise be creative or do things with their hands.

“It’s really hard to be depressed and anxious and thinking negative thoughts when you’re actively doing stuff with your hands,” Pensak said.

Digital media can be especially helpful when kids are interested in activities that aren’t offered at school or they don’t do formally, she said. Maybe friends get together and make up a dance, recording it on video.

Things that pose challenges — think getting to the next level of a video game — are also great for kids’ brains. “As you build self-efficacy and confidence doing that, then you’ll take on another challenge,” Pensak said. “And this builds your brain in a really healthy, great way.”

This latest research confirms what parents know — digital media can be terrible for our kids. Unfortunately, more data is unlikely to get most kids off their devices. So, let’s try redirecting how they use them.

The-CNN-Wire
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