Mental decline in the form of dementia or Alzheimer’s is often feared more than physical decline. Not being able to walk is one thing, while being unable to recognize your family is another. Memory loss is terrifying and seeing someone we love begin to forget things they told us or where they placed things can make your heart drop. The issue is, we often expect mental decline later in life and forgetfulness in our younger years may even seem cute or quirky. With the age of technology, we are at a higher risk than ever for developing Alzheimer’s disease and Gen Z is expected to experience cognitive decline as early as their 40’s (Manwell et al, 2022).
What The Research Tells Us
Ipad kids are at great risk of early-onset dementia. Research shows that early exposure to screen time is associated with lower cognitive abilities and lower academic performance (Mupalla et al, 2023). In addition, it is believed that those “who are exposed to excessive screen time during critical developmental periods will lead to mild cognitive impairments in early adulthood” (Manwell et al, 2022). To put this into perspective, early adulthood is as young as 18-30 years old. Due to this, it is hypothesized that there will be a 4-6 fold increase in Alzheimer’s and Dementia related diseases between the years 2060-2100 (Manwell et al, 2022).
What does technology have to do with impaired mental function?
Let’s first discuss what happens in the brain in cases of Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s and dementia-related diseases are due to neural connections breaking and being unable to communicate with each other. This breakdown of connections results in cell death and the inability of the brain to function properly causing symptoms of Alzheimer’s like memory loss. During our childhood and early adulthood, stimulating our brains creates connections and essentially forms a neural base, called the cognitive reserve (Alzheimer’s Society, 2021). The larger this cognitive reserve is, the less likely we are to experience dementia later on because we have more neural connections (Alzheimer’s Society, 2021). This is why mental stimulation is imperative during a person’s younger years and digital devices, unless used for education, do just the opposite of that. As we grow older, it is important to maintain these connections by keeping the mind active. For these reasons, activities like learning languages, reading books, having a mentally stimulating job, and frequent social interaction are linked to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia-related diseases (Alzheimer’s Society, 2021).
Risk Factors Of Alzheimer's and Dementia-Related Diseases
A very important risk factor for diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia is spending large amounts of time engaged in activities that do not require the brain to do any work. The mind is a muscle. Again, this is absolutely paramount during a child’s developmental stage, and leaving a child to play on an iPad for hours a day can greatly affect their cognitive ability a few years down the line. For adults and children alike, things like dropping out of school, watching TV for hours on end, having unstimulating work such as a factory line job, and scrolling through social media do not exercise our brains and are high risk factors for mental decline. Keeping our minds mentally active has been proven to reserve neural connections and help to prevent cognitive decline (Dementia Australia, 2016).
Chronic sensory stimulation via screen time is reported by the studies listed as one of the driving factors behind cognitive impairment and cognitive decline (Manwell et al, 2022). Excess sensory stimulation affects brain development in young adults and causes symptoms not unlike those of early-onset dementia
(Manwell et al, 2022).
Lack of social interaction is an additional risk factor in the development of Alzheimer’s. If there’s anything we know about screen time, it’s that it takes away from social interaction. It almost seems common knowledge at this point that excessive screen time affects children’s social abilities and that people nowadays are lonelier than ever.
Conclusion
Alzheimer’s and dementia are debilitating diseases that should not only be seen as a consequence of old age, but also of our lifestyle choices. While these diseases are not curable, there are concrete steps we can take to protect ourselves and our children. Parents often want to give their children the best start to life, however, handing them a device unregulated can do them a grave injustice by hindering their mental, social, and emotional abilities.
If you enjoyed this article and are interested in more daily doses of informative content, please leave a comment and subscribe to the newsletter! As always, thank you for reading.
References
Alzheimer’s society,. (2022) Risk Factors for Dementia chrome-extension://gphandlahdpffmccakmbngmbjnjiiahp/https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf/factsheet_risk_factors_for_dementia.pdf
Dementia Australia., (2016) Mental Exercise and Dementia chrome-extension://gphandlahdpffmccakmbngmbjnjiiahp/https://www.dementia.org.au/sites/default/files/helpsheets/Helpsheet-DementiaQandA06-MentalExercise_english.pdf
Manwell et al,. (2022) 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 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35164464/#:~:text=Chronic%20sensory%20overstimulation%20(i.e.%2C%20excessive,amnesia%2C%20early%20onset%20dementia).
Mupalla et al,. (2023) Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management
Comments