Effects of screen time on the teenage brain

Today’s teenagers are on target to notch up a staggering 20 years spent looking at their phones or iPads by the time they reach their 80s.

This was one of the astounding facts presented at a lecture by Dr Aric Sigman hosted at Sherborne Girls last weekend when he spoke to pupils, parents and staff, along with invited guests from Sherborne School, The Gryphon, Leweston and Sherborne Prep, on the ‘Effects of screen time on the teenage brain.’

Through his absorbing and fascinating talk, Dr Sigman gave compelling evidence of the correlation between screen time and teenage health issues, particularly when time spent on gadgets exceeds two hours per day. He also highlighted that the average child is exposed to three times this amount!

Citing numerous published research studies, Dr Sigman demonstrated the link between excessive screen time and screen dependency on teenage mental health issues, obesity, under performance at school and sleep deprivation. His message was clear; limiting screen time could provide significant advantages for children’s health and well-being.

His advice to students was:

• Aim for a maximum of 2 hours per day of screen entertainment
• Take breaks every half hour - even for homework
• Protect study time
  • do one thing at a time
• Switch other devices/social media alerts off
• Have a no-screen gap before sleep

Rebecca Brown, Director of Boarding and Designated Safeguarding Lead at Sherborne Girls, added that it was the ‘no-screen gap’ before sleep which had struck a chord in particular:

“In our revamped mobile device policy launched last year, all phones are now handed in before bed and the improvement in the girls’ sleeping patterns and quality of rest has been remarkable. 

“The girls themselves are seeing the benefits and have willingly reduced the time they feel they need to resort to checking and using gadgets and we hope these habits continue.  Dr Sigman’s talk certainly provided us with some astounding evidence and made us all re-think our dependency on our mobile gadgets.”

The parents have also fully supported the new policy, with one Year 9 parent commenting:

“Aric Sigman’s talk was engaging and highly informative. His shocking evidence that our children are being damaged by too much screen time was backed up by sound research and globally recognised publications. I am delighted that Sherborne Girls has listened to this evidence, taken the advice and implemented a strong mobile phone policy. As the parent of a boarder this is very reassuring.”