Screen Time and Dementia
Mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds, jumping between short-form videos and binging dramas damages our ability to focus, learn, and handle emotions. There is now enough research to state this as a fact.
The real trouble comes from the addictive stuff—those endless social media updates, bite-sized YouTube and TikTok videos about everything and nothing, flashy TV shows, or jumping between multiple screens at once. It is like eating sugar. It tastes good, you want more, and you want it now, but you are not getting anything back but health problems.
Spending a few minutes scrolling through your phone or watching a couple of episodes on Netflix probably will not cause significant harm. However, if this turns into a regular habit, spending hours upon hours doomscrolling, it can have a negative, long-term impact on you.
Results from research studies12 warn that spending more than 2–3 hours daily in front of screens, passively consuming content, can put us at risk for everything from behavioral issues to memory problems, Alzheimer and dementia later in life. There are studies3 showing it can literally degrade our brain. Adding to the negative effects, excessive screen time is a fast track to eye problems, poor sleep, and back pain.
If the first thing you do after waking up is to reach out for your phone and check the feeds, stop. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through whatever, do something that is better for your health, wellbeing, and relations. Make a healthy breakfast, exercise or go for a walk and get some morning light. Write down a gratitude list, jot a journal entry, or plan your day (on paper, with a pen). Spend the first hour without staring at any screens. An intentional morning routine will positively set your energy and mood for the day.
In the evening, instead of binging Arcane play with your kids, do yoga, or read a book, or better, read a book aloud to your kids. Studies4 show that reading aloud to children for as little as 15 minutes daily has tons of benefits, for both parents and children—a win-win.
In fact, reading has the opposite effect on our brains to screen time—it improves our ability to focus, learn, think and handle emotions, supporting brain health and long-term cognitive functions. So, put that phone down and grab a book. Best a paper one.
Chenjie Xu, Zhi Cao, Zuolin Lu, Yabing Hou, Yaogang Wang, Xinyu Zhang. Associations between Recreational Screen Time and Brain Health in Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Large Prospective Cohort Study. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, Volume 25, Issue 8, 2024, 104990, ISSN 1525-8610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2024.03.010 ↩︎
Neophytou, E., Manwell, L.A. & Eikelboom, R. Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Neurodevelopment, Learning, Memory, Mental Health, and Neurodegeneration: a Scoping Review. Int J Ment Health Addiction 19, 724–744 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-019-00182-2 ↩︎
Laurie A. Manwell, Merelle Tadros, Tiana M. Ciccarelli, Roelof Eikelboom. Digital dementia in the internet generation: excessive screen time during brain development will increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in adulthood. J. Integr. Neurosci. 2022, 21(1), 28 https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2101028 ↩︎
Duursma, Elisabeth & Augustyn, Marilyn & Zuckerman, B. (2008). Reading aloud to children: The evidence. Archives of disease in childhood. 93. 554-7. https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/adc.2006.106336 ↩︎