Why is it that children with attention deficit problems at school can be held in rapt attention by a video game or television program?
Dr. Perri Klass, a pediatrician, explores the issue in the latest 18 and Under column.
A child’s ability to stay focused on a screen, though not anywhere else, is actually characteristic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There are complex behavioral and neurological connections linking screens and attention, and many experts believe that these children do spend more time playing video games and watching television than their peers.
But is a child’s fascination with the screen a cause or an effect of attention problems — or both? It’s a complicated question that researchers are still struggling to tease out.
The kind of concentration that children bring to video games and television is not the kind they need to thrive in school or elsewhere in real life, according to Dr. Christopher Lucas, associate professor of child psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. “It’s not sustained attention in the absence of rewards,” he said. “It’s sustained attention with frequent intermittent rewards.”
To learn more, read the full report, “Fixated by Screens, but Seemingly Nothing Else,” and then please join the discussion below.
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