"From 0 to 3 years of age, there should be no screens at all."

Fragment of an interview with Dr. Domínica Díez Marcet, head of the Behavioural Addictions Unit of the Althaia Foundation in Spain.

There is a lot of talk about the effect of screens on adolescents and not so much in early childhood, but it turns out that the 0-6 age group is the most vulnerable to the influence of screen use. Why is this?

"They are more vulnerable because we are talking about a developing brain that receives, through screens, visual and auditory overstimulation before it is mature enough to understand what is happening on the screen. Learning does not make sense through a screen until the age of three. Comparative studies have revealed face-to-face learning is ahead of digital learning.

In addition, this dopaminergic stimulation makes the natural world boring afterwards because there is not enough stimulation; if children get bored, it is because this takes its toll on the neurological level. Children who are overexposed to screens are more irritable, less patient, and less tolerant of waiting because their attentional processes have been affected by this overexposure. In other words, overexposure to screens at an early age affects attentional and learning processes, especially when talking about the cognitive sphere.

Apart from the cognitive area, you also talk about harmful effects on emotional health and physical development. What are these effects?

"Emotionally, because the stimuli that reach them from the screens are so attractive, they don't feel like playing; but it is through symbolic play that they elaborate emotions, that they learn to represent adult roles, that they integrate social norms, that they represent what happens to them at school? However "digital natives" they may be, children and their brains need the same face-to-face inputs they have had all their lives.

Another aspect is the sustained relationship children establish with adults who are also hooked to screens. We see it in the park and on public transport: parents distracted by screens. So, the quality of the relationship is somewhat fragmented, and children need this sustained attention precisely to facilitate these brain connections.

It also affects the learning of self-regulatory mechanisms. When a child has a tantrum, and we distract them with a mobile phone, or when parents, out of ignorance, try to avoid conflict by keeping their children permanently distracted, this is an immediate solution, but they are not providing them with self-regulation resources.

As for the physical effects, we can talk about sleep disturbances, headaches, visual problems, psychopathological problems, musculoskeletal problems, obesity... We must be very attentive to the issue of children's sleep and ensure that it is a quality sleep, preserving them from screens before going to bed. Nowadays, neither children nor adolescents get the sleep they need, and this has an impact on their emotions, their learning, and their immune system.

Overexposure to screens is also causing an increase in language problems, such as delays and disturbances. Studies already indicate neurological involvement in these areas of the brain.

But what is considered overexposure, and can we leave our child's mobile phone on for a while?

"In the Manifesto on the Use of Screens to Promote Healthy Early Childhood Development, we recommend that from 0 to 3 years of age, there should be no screens at all. Sure, there will be distracting stimuli, such as a television in the background, but we think that putting a child in front of a screen intentionally before the age of three to watch a series, for example, is not relevant; they don't need it, and if they get used to it, later they will no longer be interested in playing and doing other things in person... From 4 to 6 years old, we recommend a maximum of 30 minutes a day, accompanied, and not to introduce it as a habit. From 7 to 12 years old, we are talking about an hour a day, which is almost a fantasy because studies say that nowadays it is five times more".

Isn't it contradictory that our children are not digital in a digital world?

"We want our children to be digitally competent; they need to be digitally competent to live in this society, which has many advantages. But in the first years of life, for the child to develop normally, they must be protected from screens.

Children are permanently valued from an early age by saying, "Look how he handles digital devices; look how he knows how to swipe screens." It's not that he knows how to handle them; it's that children are sponges who generate their identity, and they need this information of "how I am." If we tell them they are good at this, they will continue doing it because we reinforce this idea. All this is not harmless.

This has nothing to do with the child being digitally competent; they will be, of course. Furthermore, the fact that they know how to play video games and use social networks does not mean that they are digitally competent because they must have critical capacity. They must know how to discern which information is a priority and which is not."

Some of the proposals in the Manifesto to reverse this situation involve raising awareness, promoting social awareness, and preventing. Where should we begin? With families?

"Yes, we can help parents have a family plan for using screens at home. For example, they set limits for themselves to be a role model for their children. But the most important thing is that they can access this information. And this goes beyond the four professionals who claim this early childhood care. Our political representatives must generate active policies to protect families, policies that come from the top, and those questions, for example, those of the video game industry and social networks. Preventive campaigns need to be carried out where there are families and advertisements on public transport, social media, and television, for example. We could use the screens to put information pills and health messages that say: "We advise not to expose children under three years of age to screens, set age limits, make a progressive introduction...".

We have talked about the harmful use of screens in early childhood, but we haven't gone into the addiction problems they can lead to. Can there be an addiction to screens before the age of six? Does it happen?

"The term "addiction" is sometimes used too lightly. I would be very cautious about using the word 'addict'. If we provide the conditions, the child is an inexhaustible source of well-being and health. If a child is hooked on a mobile phone and we take it away from them, and they have a tantrum for a few days and we don't give it to them, if it hasn't been something continuous over time, they can quickly recover. We are seeing it. But we have to set the conditions to offer them healthy leisure alternatives: playing, drawing, running, interacting with other children... However, if we let children spend too much time with screens, we are helping to make their brains much more vulnerable.

Does this mean that when children are overexposed to screens in childhood, problems are more likely to develop in adolescence?

"Depending on how this overexposure has persisted over time, it can leave more or less after-effects. If we accustom a child to always eating with a screen, and when he has a tantrum, we give him a mobile phone and deprive him of being exposed to his emotions and ups and downs, he will not develop the ability to cope with life's difficulties. Later, if we remove the screens, he will no longer be hooked, but he will no longer have the same resources as a starting point as another child who has done the appropriate activities for this age. The same goes for adolescents: the consequences will depend on the time of exposure, but there will be several areas that will have been more affected than those of another person who has been more protected.? ?

More longitudinal studies are needed to see the effect of these "digital natives / face-to-face orphans". For example, a study was carried out in the United States with boys and girls aged 12 and 13 over three years, in which neurological affectation is seen in adolescents who spend more hours connected to social networks. It is already being seen that overexposure to video games or social networks affects the nuclei that have to do with regulating emotions, apart from the prefrontal cortex, where the executive functions are planning, organisation, and knowing how to discriminate between what is essential and what is secondary.....??If it leaves this mark on the brain, imagine if we are already exposing these children from an early age, when we know that during the first three years, all brain connections are tripled".