3 minute read
Digital Detox Equals Developmental Boost
I came of age when the only screen in the house was a giant, heavy slab of a television set in the corner of the living room. It had an actual vacuum tube inside and was housed in a wood veneer console. Probably weighed 200 pounds. It got three channels, maybe, if you got up and rotated the antenna on the roof.
That wasn’t the 1920s, and no I’m not 100 years old. That was the 1970s, and I’ll only be 55 this year. Nevertheless, in the decades since I was born, the number of screens in our lives have multiplied exponentially while getting lighter, smaller and smarter. And drastically more addictive.
I sometimes wonder whether some of my great joys, the throughline passions and pleasures of my life, would have ever come about if I’d been handed a screen to keep me busy as a toddler or younger and spent more and more time with that digital companion as I grew. Would I have ever been bored enough to start plunking away unbidden at the piano in the family room? Read the thousands of books that shaped my childhood imagination?
I’m not judging, parents. All of my kids had their share of screen time — and still do. The world changed, and we changed with it.
But I read something recently that emphasized how little we knew and still know about the impact of this technology on the human mind — especially the still developing human mind.
CNN reports on a study published in the journal JAMA Pediatric in 2023 that suggests the effects are massive:
“Having anywhere from one to four hours of screen time per day at age 1 is linked with higher risks of developmental delays in communication, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal and social skills by age 2.”
Kids who had more screen time were worse at activities like stacking blocks. Makes sense. We get good at stacking blocks by playing with blocks, not by watching other people play with them.
The same goes for language skills. Anyone who has studied a foreign language understands that you don’t really get good at speaking a foreign language by watching videos or memorizing vocabulary. You have to speak it to people to get your brain wired the right way. The same goes for learning your native language as a kid. You have to interact, not just watch people on a screen.
Why am I ruminating on this at the outset of a guide to New Hampshire summer camps? Because I’m certain that camp is part of the antidote to the overload of screen time.
Building communication skills and nurturing IRL friendships, physical activity, teamwork and the powerful sense of growth, confidence and independence a camp experience can bring to kids seems the direct antithesis to the physically, socially and emotionally stultifying effect screens can have on human development.
Another reason to be grateful we’re able to share this guide to New Hampshire summer camps with our state’s parents is the kids who will get so much out of putting down their phones and picking up a canoe paddle, a tennis racquet or a softball bat for a few weeks. It’s not likely we’re going back to a world where screens don’t play a ubiquitous and important role in our lives and work. All the more crucial that we find these amazing places to get away from them and reset our relationships with them, even if it’s just for a few days, weeks or months in the summertime.
