This recording is from the British Council.
The sound of kids hanging out together.
Or at least how it sounded a few years ago.
Nowadays, a group of, well, just about anyone.
Kids, teens, tweens, their parents might sound a lot more like this.
Most of us spend hours a day with our heads bent over our smartphones.
Research suggests teenagers spend as many as nine hours a day,
while pre-teens spend up to six.
I didn't know it's like the first thing I do in the morning,
check in and see who's posted anything overnight.
It's my alarm clock, so kind of have to look at it.
And then, you know, it's pretty hard not to scroll through.
And it's not just teenagers and millennials.
Generation X and even the baby boomers are almost as bad.
I'm online most of the day for work,
and you'd think I'd be sick of screens by the time I get home.
But most of my news comes through Facebook.
And I'm really into food.
So I'll hold my hands up to being one of those people
who post photos of their meals.
But are we addicted to our phones and apps?
And does it matter?
Former Google and Facebook employees certainly think so.
So they've set up a nonprofit organisation,
the Centre for Humane Technology,
to reverse the digital attention crisis
and promote safe technology for children.
Anyone who's in cues around the blog
for the latest iPhone has to wonder what this people are thinking.
You've literally got people sleeping in the street
to get the newest device.
Probably not even talking to anyone else in the queue
because they're on social media,
taking selfies in the queue to post to Instagram.
If that's not addiction, it's certainly obsession.
A more formal definition of addiction
describes it as a repeated involvement with an activity
despite the harm it causes.
Someone with an addiction has cravings.
That feeling that you haven't checked your phone
for two minutes and can't relax
until you get your hands on it again.
They may have a lack of self-control
and not realise their behaviour is causing problems,
like texting while cycling
or falling off a cliff taking a selfie.
And in case you're wondering,
I read about both of those via the news app on my phone,
which updates every couple of minutes
with the latest stories, definitely addicted.
So the truth about tech campaign
by common sense media
and the Centre for Humane Technology
couldn't come fast enough for most of us.
But its children who are probably most at risk
because of the effect tech addiction
might be having on their brain development.
Professor Mary Michaels
of the Atlanta Future Tech Institute
has been working with very young children.
Mary, thanks for dropping by.
What is your research telling us?
Well, we know that screen time is affecting
key aspects of healthy child development,
like sleep, healthy eating
and what psychology schools serve
and return moments,
which are when parents respond to babies seeking assurance
and connection by making eye contact,
smiling or talking,
or perfectly normal things we do
and which help lay the foundations of baby's brains.
It's much harder to engage with a baby normally
if you're looking at your phone,
or even worse,
if parents give a crying child a phone
to distract them instead of talking to them
or hugging them,
and that might lead them failing to develop
their ability to regulate their own emotions.
And what about older children?
Again, we know that teenagers
who spend a lot of time on social media
are 56% more likely to report being unhappy
and 27% more likely to suffer depression.
Teenagers are especially vulnerable
because they're more sensitive to highs and lows anyway
so we are looking at potentially higher instances of suicide,
schizophrenia, anxiety,
and addiction in teens
which is exacerbated by dependence on technology.
It sounds like a vicious circle.
They're more likely to get addicted to smartphones
and social media,
and that addiction itself
makes them candidates for other addictions.
Yes, that's right.
Time to stage an intervention.
Is there anything we can do to make tech less addictive?
Setting devices to grey scale,
which is basically black and white,
might make them less appealing,
scrolling through a newsfeed
of boring, washed out photos
just doesn't create the same rush
as bright colours, perhaps?
And you can turn off the notifications
that are constantly putting you back into check your phone.
So, is it...
This recording is from the British Council.
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