By Charlize Coviello, ’29
Opinions Editor
How many hours in a day do you spend looking at screens: your phone, a computer, a TV? The average person spends about 10-12 hours in a day looking at digital screens; that is almost half of an entire day. Ask yourself this question: What am I looking at on a digital screen? Am I doing school work, researching, studying — or am I mindlessly scrolling social media?
Digital screens have been around for decades, and since the 1960s attention spans have decreased by 96.8 percent, going from 2.5 minutes to only 8 seconds. The constant interruption of focus over the years while using social media and technology have allowed the brain to switch tasks constantly. Ads, popups, and notifications make multiple ideas available to the brain when online constantly throughout the day. This makes the brain used to switching topics, further disabling the ability to focus on just one topic for an extended period of time. TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram – all platforms that provide short-form videos – have a combination of almost 6 billion users. The ability to endlessly scroll, being provided with a new idea every video, provides rapid dopamine rewards. These constant boosts of dopamine make your brain want more, as well as make slow or deep tasks feel monotonous and boring when they aren’t providing steady entertainment. Continuously processing multiple streams of digital information wears out the brain’s executive functions, especially the parts responsible for planning and concentration. Furthermore, people are relying on devices to store easy information, rather than practicing active retention, weakening sustained mental effort.
Growing children and teens are heavily effected by social media through changes in mental health, brain development, and daily habits. The average teen who uses social media gets an average of 6-7 hours of sleep per night, falling significantly short from the 8-10 recommended hours. Blue light and late-night scrolling interfere with natural rest cycles, which directly contributes to worsening depressive symptoms over time. The constant exposure of a specialized feed fuels the fear of missing out (FOMO), low self esteem, body dissatisfaction, and feelings of social isolation. The exposure to dopamine rushes gives teens a desire to be constantly entertained not only by social media, but by their friends as well. They constantly compare the life they have, causing them to want that unrealistic, fake, and unattainable lifestyle that influencers lead.
Attention spans and mental health of users can be potentially saved by shifting from content that exploits attention to curating digital use into a non-addictive activity. Regulating online use is a choice, one that everyone needs to make. Teens and children should have a daily screen time limit. Society as a whole needs to stop normalizing extended electronic usage. Eight hours of screen time a day is not normal, and certainly not healthy.
Works cited
https://www.reviews.org/tv-service/americans-spend-12-hours-a-day-on-screens
https://www.azumotech.com/resource-center/display-tech-evolution-history
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/attention-spans
https://www.printful.com/blog/tiktok-statistics
https://www.statista.com/statistics/545967/snapchat-app-dau
https://www.statista.com/topics/1882/instagram
https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594763
https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/specialties/sleep-disorder-center/sleep-in-adolescents
