More and more studies are being published by the week about the absolutely devastating effects of smartphones and tables on human development because they are being given to younger and younger children in ever increasing amounts, and these children are more and more given completely unrestricted screentime. Smart devices have become the modern babysitters.
Since about the 1980's television had been largely given this role by lazy busy parents, and this already had many negative side-effects. The redeeming quality of television, however, compared to modern smart devices, is that the content was strictly restricted, controlled and regulated, in most countries by law. Not that it was good even then to just use the television as a substitute babysitter, but at least when you put your child in front of the TV at certain hours of day, you at least had almost full certainty that they would not be exposed to particularly harmful content (because such content at those hours is outright banned by law in most countries, and voluntarily restricted by the vast majority of TV channels.)
The problem with smart devices, however, is that there are no restrictions on content by time of day, or by anything, really. Smart devices are also several orders more addictive than TV ever was. While TV addiction was (and still is) a real thing, it's nothing compared to social media and video sharing website addiction. More and more studies are being publishes about the devastating effects of this addiction, and this content, especially on children.
This is having very serious consequences. More and more children in our society are being developmentally stunted by being allowed unrestricted access to smart devices, all day long, with little to no supervision, often without any sort of content filtering (and even when there is some content filtering, and even when the child is still not smart enough to get around it, even the content that the filtering allows through can have harmful effects in the long run.) Children are not learning social skills, they don't know how to socialize, they don't learn how to empathize with other people, they never learn to read subtle social cues, facial expressions, etc, they have no idea how to interact with other people properly because they are glued all day long to their smart devices. Studies have shown that using smart devices all day long, every day, from a very young age (parents are nowadays giving smart devices even to their 2-year-olds) does not only have a psychological effect, it can literally stunt the physical development of the brain, especially the frontal cortex (which is mostly responsible for rational thinking and social interactions). And if the brain physically does not fully develop, it becomes a permanent physical defect. At some point the growth stops, and never resumes, and thus the defect becomes permanent, and the person becomes permanently mentally stunted, incapable of normal social interactions, normal empathy, normal rational intelligent thinking.
In fact, many studies have shown a very worrying increase in sociopathy and outright psychopathy among the current youngest generation. More and more people are growing up with a deficient capability of feeling empathy for other people, and this is not just lack of learning such skills but, as mentioned, an actual physical defect of the brain caused by stunted growth, caused by lack of healthy social interactions with other people and the devastating effects of smart devices, social media and video sharing websites. More and more children are growing up to be socially incapable, lacking empathy, being extremely irritable, and having a stunted capability of interacting with other people and engaging in rational thinking and making rational decisions.
And this isn't even going into the huge problem of child predators online, which is likewise spreading like a wildfire because of the sheer abundance of young children online.
There's a good summary of all this eg. in this video.
(Yes, I understand the irony of linking to an online video in an article admonishing the devastating effects of video sharing websites, but oh well. I'm assuming if you are reading this you are an adult. The kids being affected by this don't have the attention span to read this far anyway.)
The main problem is, of course, that parents aren't raising their children anymore. They are too busy at work, too tired when they come home, and are using smart devices are substitute babysitters. Absolutely horrendous babysitters who are literally, not just figuratively, corrupting their minds, as shown by numerous studies.
Do you know what one solution to this problem would be? In addition to the rather obvious solution of taking away all smart devices from children?
As "antiquated" and "conservative" and "regressive" as it might sound, encouraging mothers to become stay-at-home moms. For mothers to stay at home taking care of their children.
I find it ironic that when someone suggests that both mothers and their children would be happier if the mother staid at home raising her children, that's considered something horrible. Many people gasp at such a horrible suggestion! How dare you suggest such a thing!
For some reason people have been brainwashed since the 1970's to think that suggesting that women become stay-at-home moms is 100% equivalent to suggesting that husbands beat and abuse their wives. Seriously. In the mind of many people there's a direct 1-to-1 correlation between the two things. Suggest the first, and you immediately get accused of promoting the second.
Since the 1970's western society has been brainwashed into seriously thinking that it's much better for women to become corporate slaves and to be away from home all day long, than it is for them to be at home raising their children. No reason need given.
Well, here we see one of the devastating effects of this mentality.
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