Digital dementia in children in Germany

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In Germany, pediatricians and psychologists sound the alarm: "digitalization" of children leads to "digital dementia"

The 23rd Congress on Adolescent Medicine was held last week in the ancient Thuringian Weimar. As in previous years, it was organized by the Association of Pediatric and Adolescent Physicians (BVKJ), which brings together over 12,000 pediatricians in hospitals, dispensaries and public health services. More than 300 delegates from all over the Federal Republic took part in the work of this forum.

The agenda of the Congress was centered on the theme “Youth Sexuality - The Exciting Years” (German: “Jugendsexualität - Aufregende Jahre”). “The early education of children about sexuality is due to the increased availability of relevant content,” the speakers sounded the alarm. At the same time, the speakers with undisguised alarm, not to say with annoyance, noted the lack of understanding by parents of the dangers of their children being carried away by smartphones and proposed different methods of preventing the development of dependence of children and adolescents on electronic devices and the Web.

Thus, within the framework of the discussion of the main topic, the problem of the detrimental influence of modern means of communication and the Internet on children and adolescents came to the fore.

The results of last year's BVKJ study were announced, according to which 70% of children under the age of six spend more than one hour a day with their parent's gadgets.

As the chairman of the Congress, MD Uwe Buching said, commenting on the findings of the study, “excessive consumption of media content leads, among other things, to delayed speech development and attention deficit disorder. But for seven out of ten preschool children, the smartphone has become a favorite toy. Look into any nursery - in the vast majority of them you will see a smartphone or tablet instead of constructors and picture books."

“The findings of last year's BVKJ study were not a revelation for all of us - we have all known this for about eight years,” said Dr. Dirk Rühling, spokesman for the Thuringian branch of the BVKJ. - The network is an inexhaustible source of information, and a person - especially a small person - is by nature curious. Therefore, it is more correct to understand Internet addiction as a desire to constantly receive new information. In general, there is nothing wrong with this - unless such a desire becomes obsessive. Excessive use of the Internet turns off the child from normal social interactions, harms socialization, since the process of communication on the Internet is, in fact, one-sided. Children of preschool and early school age are especially curious, and searching for information, watching cartoons and pictures on the Web can become an obsessive state. And the child is taught to this by his own parents, and first of all - by personal example. I often observe in my praxis how out of eight expecting mothers, seven are busy with their smartphones, instead of taking care of their child."

New federal directives in the field of child health, which entered into force on September 1, 2016, were also discussed at Congress. As noted by the speakers, this document provides pediatricians with more options to prevent child and adolescent Internet addiction. However, as Dirk Rühling admits, doctors' efforts will not have much effect against the background of mass advertising in all types of media.

The widespread distribution of computers and electronic communications, as well as the transition in many elementary schools in Germany from the classic capital letter to the printed type (as an option - to the so-called "written simplified", in which the printed letters are connected by appropriate hooks) have already led to the fact that in recent years, the handwriting of German schoolchildren has noticeably deteriorated.

This is the opinion of 79% of school teachers who participated in a survey conducted by the Teachers' Association (DL). Among elementary school teachers, 83% believe that today's children enter schools with worse prerequisites for developing handwriting skills than before. Among boys, every second person experiences problems with writing, and among girls - 31%.

According to the professor of the Department of Pedagogy at the University of Regensburg, Angela Enders, “the abolition of the prescription entails a change in the mental activity of schoolchildren. Handwritten texts need to be thought out better than those typed on a computer keyboard."

The process of "writing out" letters is necessary for the development of fine motor skills in children, - scientists and teachers unanimously assure. According to the scientific adviser of the Bavarian Institute for Writing Motor Skills Christian Marquardt, “writing with a pen means, on the one hand, writing down certain information, and on the other hand, it is a cognitive and coordinating process that goes far beyond the usual recording of information. Handwriting improves the memorization process, activates and trains certain parts of the brain. The abolition of the study of capital letters deprives schoolchildren of the possibility of full-fledged development."

“The decline in writing skills is a consequence of school policies in general, with less emphasis on writing and speech development in general,” sums up DL President Josef Kraus. He cited curriculum shortening, photocopies, and multiple choice tests as examples.

The prominent German psychologist and psychiatrist Manfred Spitzer, back in 2012, in his book Digital Demenz, warned of the negative consequences of a decrease in the attention of school politics to teaching writing. After criticizing the federal government and industry's initiative to "digitize" school education to smithereens, he wrote:

“Equipping all schoolchildren with laptops and promoting learning in the form of a computer game (Computerspiel-Pädagogik) - these initiatives show either the blatant ignorance of their authors or the shamelessness of the lobbyists for commercial interests. Numerous scientific studies show that using digital media as educational tools is a bad idea. In fact, they impair social behavior and contribute to depression. Gambling addiction, Internet addiction, self-isolation from real life are all a consequence of the digitalization of our life, which has become a real disease of civilization. As for beautiful handwriting, without developing this skill and its constant practical application, the human brain is at a level below its potential."