Too Much Screen Time Stunts Your Child’s Ability to Understand Emotions: Study

Spending too much time with digital devices and gadgets can stunt children's ability to understand emotions, according to a study.

Smart phones and note pads not only minimize wastage of time and energy to communicate and connect, but are also used as toys to keep cranky children quiet and engaged. A recent research by the University of California, Los Angeles, says that sometimes it is advantageous to keep a little distance from these digital devices. They investigated the effects of depriving digital media on 51 sixth-grade students who went on outdoor camping vacation for five days. It was observed the subjects enjoyed real inter-personal communication and spending time outdoors.

The study looked at another group of 54 children of the same age group who spent five days in front of television and computer. Participants from both groups were made to watch images and video clippings of people showing various emotions like anger, joy, anxiety and melancholy. It was found children who attended outdoor camps were able to gauge emotions and non-verbal cues than those who remained couch potatoes or spent too much time on the internet.

The study urges people to consider the negative repercussion of digital and social media and not just focus only on its advantages.

"Many people are looking at the benefits of digital media in education, and not many are looking at the costs. Decreased sensitivity to emotional cues is one of the costs-understanding the emotions of other people. The displacement of in-person social interaction by screen interaction seems to be reducing social skills," said Patricia M. Greenfield, study author and professor of psychology at UCLA, reports the Time.

Real face-to-face communication is important in understanding tendencies and behaviors that form an essential part of communication and building social relations. Remaining technology deprived or not socializing impacts one's ability to recognize emotions and behave accordingly.

The current research also noted on average many children spent over four hours texting, watching television or playing video games. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds spent at least seven hours using digital devices and interacting with non-human sources.

"You can't learn non-verbal emotional cues from a screen in the way you can learn it from face-to-face communication," added Yalda T. Uhls, co-author and researcher at the Children's Digital Media Center.

More information is available online in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.