I saw this video about a doctor who performed an MRI on a 5 year old and discovered she essentially had βbrain damageβ from excessive iPad use, as the white matter in her brain couldnβt form properly due to an understimulated environment.
Hmm itβs almost like thereβs supposed to be adult figures responsible for monitoring her screen time and making sure she develops properlyβ¦ certainly this isnβt the result of neglect at the hands of her parentsβ¦
βThis 5 year old is brain damaged by excessive iPad useβ
Translation: This 5 year old is developmentally impaired by neglectful parents who used an iPad as a stand-in for social and environmental stimulation / interaction for hours at a time during critical early stages of child development. The iPad is the cop-out.
βChildren donβt have the strength to hold pencils anymore because they only use screens.β
Translation: Parents arenβt making the conscious effort to help their children develop necessary skills and letting iPads raise them.
When are people going to realize the iPads and whatnot are the instruments through which the neglect is happening through and not the cause? How the fuck do you let your child have such a severe lack of physical strength in their hands that they canβt hold a pencil properly?
People will see a study suggesting children with higher screen times have poorer or negative developmental outcomes and immediately say itβs the screens causing this, and not the more likely fact that higher screen time = less engagement time with their environment, physical exercise, parents, family, and their peers, all of which are NECESSARY for a healthy upbringing as a social species.
Itβs like saying a dog who was kept in a cage all its life and left with atrophied muscles was damaged by the cage, and not by the fact its owners were too lazy to play or walk their dog in order for its muscles to build properly. The cage is the instrument of neglect and the owners are the perpetrators, in the same way parents are the perpetrators and weaponizing screen time as an excuse and painting themselves as helpless bystanders.
Okay, people keep misunderstanding my point and somehow interpreted this as me saying iPads and screens cause brain damage, even though I am literally arguing the opposite.
I put "brain damage" in quotations for a reason, I believe it's fear mongering nonsense and am well aware screens don't cause tissue damage. I am repeating the words the video I mentioned used, which is that the young girl sustained brain damage from an iPad, those are NOT my words and I made this post in the first place because it's a load of nonsense that's commonly repeated. I don't know how to make that more clear. What people are mistaking for tissue damage is just the outcome of child neglect, like I stated multiple times already. I repeat, I do not believe and am literally arguing against the notion that screens rot children's brains, I am well aware it's repackaged "TV rots your brain" rhetoric. I am, however, stating the obvious fact that parents neglecting their kids does cause impairments (note how I didn't say brain damage) and sometimes they use screens to perpetrate that neglect.
Yes there are parents in very shitty strained circumstances because of capitalism. However, I am very very sick of people expecting me to comfort and prioritize parents in discussions about abused and neglected children. I already reblogged another version of this before acknowledging parents in these difficult situations.
This is not solely about screen time, this is about the lack of proper care for children and how iPads are often the blame for bad parenting, and how the usual outcomes of abuse / neglect are being misunderstood as something else. A lot of these parents would likely still be neglectful of their children whether they had more or less screen time, whether they have iPads or not, because I am specifically referring to parents who do have the means but don't put the effort in because they don't care.
