How Does Screen Time Affect Your Brain, Anxiety & Overall Health?
At the same time, healthy young patients of mine in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are reporting chronic insomnia, brain fog, and short-term memory loss, as well as vision strain and headaches in droves.
While there isn't an abundance of research, a few studies are beginning to emerge. Here's what can happen if you stare at a screen all day.
1. It can rewire your brain (and even change its structure).
The effects on your brain are both behavioral and structural.
First, smartphone addiction is real. A study of students in 10 countries showed the majority feel acute distress if they have to go without their phones for 24 hours. Meanwhile, most people are checking their phones at least 150 times a day and sending upward of 100-plus texts.
This problematic use of cellphones has been associated with anxiety, stress, and even depression. These habits are causing what top neuroscientists have called "digital dementia," harming important right-brain functions including short-term memory, attention, and concentration in ways that may or may not be reversible.
On the structural side, individuals who are perceived as having an online game addiction show significant gray matter atrophy in various areas of the brain (right orbitofrontal cortex, bilateral insula, and right supplementary motor area) once examined on brain MRI studies. These affected areas where volume loss is seen are responsible for critical cognitive functions such as planning, prioritizing, organizing, impulse control, and reward pathways. These areas are also specifically involved in our development of empathy and compassion as well as translation of physical signals into emotion.
Additionally, kids are at risk, too. Findings from an ongoing NIH study on 9- and 10-year-olds show that those who use smartphones, tablets, and video games more than seven hours a day are more likely to have premature thinning of the cortex—the outermost layer of the brain where most information processing occurs. At this point, researchers aren't sure if that's a bad thing and.....READ MORE
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