December 5, 2023 • 29 mins
We’ve all heard the old saying that watching too much TV rots your brain. How much truth is there to this – especially when it comes to kids paying attention in school? Should parents feel guilty about their kids’ screen time? Associate Professor Katherine Johnson has the answers.
Read about the featured study here.
Featuring Associate Professor Katherine Johnson. Katherine's research is in the area of developmental cognitive neuroscience.
Credits: Hosted by Associate Professor Cassie Hayward and Professor Nick Haslam. Produced by Carly Godden and Louise Sheedy. Mixed by David Calf.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nick Haslam (00:00):
This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurrundjeri people,
the Woiwurrung and the Boonwurrung, and we would like to pay respects
to their elders, past and present and emerging.
From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
of Melbourne, this is PsychTalks.
(00:22):
Hello and welcome to PsychTalks, where we uncover what the
latest studies in psychology have to say about how our
minds work. I'm Nick Haslam, a professor of psychology here
at the University of Melbourne. And I'm joined by my
co-host associate Professor Cassie Hayward.
Cassie Hayward (00:36):
Hi there, Nick. And we're very excited to talk to
another expert here from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
about their incredible research.
Nick Haslam (00:43):
So, Cassie, our focus today, Or perhaps I should say
our attention, is on what impacts on our ability to
pay attention and stick to a task.
We're on our screens so much these days. Many folks
at home might be feeling that our ability to concentrate
is in rather short supply.
Cassie Hayward (00:57):
Yes, and I think there's a particular anxiety that parents
share about letting their children play on their phones or
their tablets. And I think our listeners are going to
be very surprised by the results from this recent study
we're covering, because what it shows is that for kids,
this screen time might not actually be quite the devil
it's made out to be.
Nick Haslam (01:14):
Indeed, and to tell us more about it, we're joined by
our fellow researcher, Associate Professor Katherine Johnson, who specialises in
developmental cognitive neuroscience with a special interest in understanding attention
control in children and young people.
Welcome to the show, Katherine. For those of us who
are not as schooled as you are in cognitive neuroscience
and cognitive psychology, you know what is attention?
Katherine Johnson (01:35):
Yeah, great question. Um, so the attention generally is the
idea that we can focus on one particular thing in
a moment in time. So it's our focus, our concentration,
and there are a range of different ways to measure that,
and to conceptualise that, and we've got a number of
different models of attention that are used in the literature.
The models that I use in my research are originally
(01:59):
devised by Michael Posner in the US and his colleagues
and Ian Robertson in Ireland and his colleagues. So Ian
Robertson's work on sustained attention has been preeminent in my research,
he was my boss in Ireland.
And so sustained attention is the ability to maintain your
attention on a task over a period of time, t hat
(02:20):
doesn't give you much feedback, that's quite boring and repetitive
and dull. And so you really need to self regulate
and maintain your attention deliberately, with that focus in mind.
And then attention more generally, there's lots of different types
of attention every second of the day. We are choosing
what we are focusing on, so we need to be
able to be alert and not sleepy. That's one form
(02:44):
of attention, so that alerting feature of being awake and
on the ball and ready to go, that's a whole
network in the brain that helps you be alert, and
it's really, really important for us. We can be overly
alert and become fidgety and a bit hyperactive, or we
can be very sleepy. So we need to have that
Goldilocks range in the middle to perform well.
And then there's another type of attention that's involved in checking.
(03:07):
Are we doing the right thing right now? Are we
meant to be on task? Are we Are we supposed
to be doing this really boring task. Are we still
watching for tigers in the forest? Where is my phone?
It doesn't matter. I'm meant to be focusing on this task.
So this executive control system helps us regulate what we're
doing and why we're doing it.
Cassie Hayward (03:23):
When did you start thinking about the potential impact on
screen use of attention problems?
Katherine Johnson (03:30):
Probably 2019. And it was that research where we looked
at screen usage was looking at a big bunch of
children who are just from the general classroom. So we
weren't targeting children with a particular problem with attention or
any other difficulty. We were just looking at our typical
classroom and looking at the abilities of children to maintain
(03:54):
and concentrate and hold their attention to a task.
And we were interested in how that might relate to
their academic performance and what their classroom behaviour is like
as rated by teachers. And we are running this large
longitudinal study that's funded by the Australian Research Council. This
is my colleague, Professor Kim Cornish and myself. She's at
Monash University, and we kept getting questions from family and
(04:19):
friends about screen use.
It's a really hot topic, especially for parents of little
Children where the parents need a break and they need
to go and have lunch with their friends at the cafe.
And they feel some shame and guilt around giving their
toddler or their young child or their primary school child
their tablet or their phone to use. So we were
interested to see if there was actually any impact of
(04:42):
screen use on the child's attention and their behaviour. So
it was really like a point of research because we
were being asked about it socially.
Cassie Hayward (04:50):
Hi, I'm a mum of three little kids. And I
can tell you there is a lot of concern and
guilt around the topic of screen use. Is that concern
any different to what we had generations ago about 'There's
too much TV or too much video games?' Or is
this just a new worry about a similar thing? Or
is there something different about screen use?
Katherine Johnson (05:10):
It's exactly the same problem. It's this idea that we
are not entertaining our children ourselves, and so there's something
wrong with whatever it is the substitute proxy that we
are giving to allow the child to have some time
to themselves so that the poor parents and carers can
have some time to themselves, so it's exactly the same problem.
TV video games, tablets, Nintendo, whatever it is.
Cassie Hayward (05:32):
I have all of those things in our house, um, so
can we alleviate some of the guilt that parents feel
around screen use?
Katherine Johnson (05:39):
Well, based on our research, this is one study. We
can alleviate some of that guilt. Yes, So do you
want me to tell you about that research?
Cassie Hayward (05:46):
I would love for you to tell us about that research,
and I'm going to print it out and stick it
on in the fridge.
Katherine Johnson (05:52):
So apps on phones and tablets and computer games are
fantastic entertainment for all of us. They are mostly interactive,
so there's some information being provided to the child. The
child receives information and gives information back, so it might
be that they make choices or they respond. And then
there's a response back. So these apps have got novel features,
(06:13):
and there's a lot of positive reinforcement going on, and
some kids actually do have problems in the sense that
they continue to play these games for many hours.
And that is a cause for concern. So we were
interested to see whether spending time on different types of
screens was associated with any classroom behavioural problems and whether
it had any associations with the ability of the child
(06:35):
to sustain their attention.
We were also interested in the issue of sleep, so
we were wondering whether children might be spending time playing
games and on their tablet or their parents' phone and
not sleeping. So we wanted to ask these two different
questions together. Hand in hand. We know that sleep is really,
(06:57):
really important for child development of the brain, and it's
really important for a child being attentive at school, behaving
well and learning well.
So sleep is really, really important. So poor sleep is
associated with poorer, efficient attention, poorer, sustained attention. So if
you are tired, you are more likely to perform badly
on boring tasks. We all have that experience.
(07:20):
There was an interesting hypothesis linking the amount of screen
time a child might have with their sleep. And this
is the displacement hypothesis, which is just saying that instead
of a child curling up under the doona with a
book and a torch, they might be playing on their
tablet and is that worse? We don't know. So we
wanted to ask that question about sleep and screen use
(07:43):
and the child's ability to sustain their attention.
And happily, we have this beautiful task that only takes
5.5 minutes. We tested 162 children, and they were about
seven years of age, and we found that 94% of
the children watch TV and 82% used a tablet. But
less than half of the participants used a phone or
(08:05):
a video game. So we had 40% of the children
had used a phone in that past week, and only 33%
had used a video game. So these are seven year olds,
and that's probably right. Yeah, we weren't surprised by that.
Nick Haslam (08:16):
So just to interrupt. I mean, do you trust the
parents to give accurate reports on these things?
Cassie Hayward (08:21):
A parent of a seven year old?
Nick Haslam (08:22):
I'm sure you're very trustworthy. But I mean again, obviously, you can only
rely on there's no better data than from the parents,
but But were they trustworthy? Do you think?
Katherine Johnson (08:31):
I think so? Yes, That seemed to be fine with
what we would expect. Seven year olds tend to borrow
their parents' phones to use them, and they may well
have a tablet or have readily access to a tablet.
And definitely TV.
Cassie Hayward (08:43):
This cohort of Children were from across Victoria. So we
had a set of children in the metropolitan regions of Melbourne.
But we also went out and tested children in regional
towns and tiny little rural towns. And so we made
sure that we had this beautiful spread of children from
across Victoria. Also a spread across SES sectors. And we
(09:03):
tested children from government schools, Catholic schools and independent schools.
Nick Haslam (09:07):
So, by SES, you mean socio-economic status, sort of rich
versus poor schools?
Katherine Johnson (09:12):
Yes. So we used a measure of socio economic status
from the areas around each school.
Cassie Hayward (09:18):
So we've got this beautiful range of different types of
children doing your study. So you've got the reported screen
use and then they do this attention task. Right. So
your 5.5 minute boring task, how did they perform?
Katherine Johnson (09:34):
They perform like seven year old. So they made they
made quite a few errors. So there's a way that
you can measure different parts of performance on this task.
So the task is you have one digit, say number
one coming up on the computer screen in front of
the child.
And then after a second or so, the next digit
comes up. And in this version of the task, the
(09:54):
next digit is number two, followed by number three, right
up to nine, and then it flips back to number
one again. Number two number three. And the task for
the child is to respond to every digit except number three,
so most of the time they are responding. But occasionally
they need to
withhold their response, and they can predict when that withhold
(10:14):
is coming up. So as soon as there's a flip
from the nine back to the one again, they know
that three is coming up and they need to withhold
the press. But the trick, of course, is that you
get lulled into this boring task and you press the
three accidentally. So when you do that, that's called a
commission error. So you've committed an error.
A child will just go off task so they'll just
(10:35):
stop doing the task and they'll look out the window
and then they'll go. Oh, I have to do the
task and they'll start doing the task again. And so
all the digits that they've just missed, they're measures of omission.
So they've omitted a response, and so that's a really
nice measure of attention control.
They've just gone off task and they've had a moment
and then they come back on task again and we
all we all do that. But children particularly do that.
(10:57):
And then for all the times when they are pressing appropriately,
we can measure how fast they've responded, but also how
variably they are responding. So we get a measure of
their average response time so it might be for seven
year old children. That might be 800 milliseconds to respond
to the digit. But we want to see how variably
they respond.
So if they are about to lose their attention, they
(11:19):
may take a while to respond, and they'll have a
slow response. And then if they come back on task again,
they may rush through and then press quite quickly. And
so the longer the amount of screen time
Cassie Hayward (11:30):
And this is all screens?
Katherine Johnson (11:32):
All screens, yep. It didn't predict their behaviour in the classroom, so there
was no association between how long a child spent on
screens and their behaviour in the classroom.
Cassie Hayward (11:42):
So what you're saying is, in your study, the amount
of time that a child spent watching a screen didn't
impact their performance on that boring task.
Katherine Johnson (11:50):
Yeah,
Nick Haslam (11:51):
Goes against the hypothesis that it's rotting your brain.
Katherine Johnson (11:53):
Oh, yeah, but I never believed that. Yeah,
Cassie Hayward (11:55):
yeah, yeah, yeah, I think there'll be parents who are
surprised by that finding who buy into this idea that
all screen use is terrible and that must be having
some bad impact on their children.
Katherine Johnson (12:06):
Oh, well, let's talk about that for a second, then,
because there are different types of screen use, right? So this
won't come as a surprise to us. But video games
and tablet and phone have a lot of apps that
are really good for children's attention control. So I don't
want to foreshadow our results.
But there are lots of really interesting games that are
encouraging children to use strategy to respond quickly and accurately
(12:30):
and to maintain their attention over time. And these are
all things that we want to encourage in children, and
the more that we can encourage that through variation in
different apps, the better. I think you don't want children
on screens for a really long period of time, but
there's a lot of benefits to spending time using these creative,
strategy based educational apps.
(12:51):
The things you don't want the children to do are
watching adult TV that's not designed for children. So that's
where they are coming across themes that are not appropriate
for their age group and TVs can be - unless it's
child friendly and it's designed for interactive work with children -
can be a bit mindless, and that's where the brain
rotting might come in, where the child is just staring
(13:12):
at the TV and not engaging their brain passive. It's
a very passive consumption. Yes, I think that's what you
want to avoid.
Cassie Hayward (13:19):
And we should probably say here that passive consumption of
content can, of course, happen through tablets and other screens,
not just TV. So I guess it's important to keep
in mind that regardless of the type of screen, it's
that mindless or passive consumption that's a concern.
Katherine Johnson (13:32):
Yeah, yeah,
Cassie Hayward (13:33):
And as I said, I've got three kids who are
8, 7 and six, and they do use screens. But I
must admit, I've been surprised at how, kind of creative
a lot of the games are even on, you know,
Nintendo platforms, they can play Minecraft. I was kind of
against Minecraft at the start. I now love it because
they have to think it's strategy. It's building. It's creativity.
Katherine Johnson (13:52):
Yeah, it's fantastic
Cassie Hayward (13:52):
And they love it. It's a game to them, but
you can see that there's something more than just play going.
Katherine Johnson (13:58):
Oh, yeah, that's right. Exactly right. So what we found
was the the more time spent using tablets and playing
video games, the better the child performed on the boring task,
so they made less omission errors. So they went off
task less often the more they spent time on tablets
and video games.
Cassie Hayward (14:17):
Is that because they're used to interacting with some type
of screen based game, like do they kind of get the?
Katherine Johnson (14:24):
I'm sure it's a practise effect, but you're practising a
system that you want to practise. It's a system where
you are trying to engage with the teacher who is standing,
I'm sure being amazing, but like, you know, teaching them
different bits and pieces that they need to learn, and
the child has to sit there and listen and take
that information in and use their sustained attention system. And
so you want that to be practised.
(14:47):
And if it's on a task that they find engaging
that uses their strategy and thinking skills, thinking about the
next move to make and how to get around an
obstacle or whatever the game is getting them to do,
then that's brilliant.
Nick Haslam (15:01):
Well, the really clear message that I'm hearing is that
screens aren't bad for kids. Sounds to me, at least ,
In your study, it seems unlikely
Cassie Hayward (15:07):
that definitely what I heard.
Katherine Johnson (15:10):
The only thing that you want to pay attention to, though,
is that the more time the child spent using tablets,
the poorer their sleep quality.
Nick Haslam (15:19):
Did you find any evidence for that displacement hypothesis you
mentioned earlier? Which I think is the idea that the
more you are on tablets, the less time you have
to sleep, and that might have negative implications.
Katherine Johnson (15:30):
Yes, so we wanted to see whether the use of
screen devices had a direct effect on sustained attention performance,
and it did in the sense that there was a better
sustained attention performance with more time spent using tablets and
playing video games.
And we were also interested to see if there was
an association between time spent on devices and sleep. And
(15:53):
there was, so more time spent on tablets was associated
with poor sleep quality but not duration.
But then we also tested for whether there was a
mediating effect of sleep. So was it the case that
children were spending time on tablets that led to poorer
sleep quality or poorer sleep duration? That then had an
(16:13):
effect on performance on the boring task or classroom behaviour?
And that was not the case. So there are two
separate effects.
Cassie Hayward (16:21):
So, Katherine, what I'm hearing is that kids who spent
more time on devices were more likely to have poorer
sleep quality, not necessarily time spent asleep, but the actual
quality of that sleep, and that poorer sleep was also
related to poorer classroom behaviour. But those two findings are separate.
It's not only those who had a lot of screen
time that had the bad sleep.
Nick Haslam (16:42):
So your participants in this study are aged 6 to 8.
They are quite small. You don't find this relationship between
screen use and inattention in class, which is terrific and
I think surprising and a really important research message. Do
you think you'd find the same things with older kids?
Maybe who are engaging in more gaming? Maybe you might
find more sleep displacement among teenagers?
Katherine Johnson (17:04):
Absolutely. That is definitely the case. So previous research has
found with adolescents that there is an association between disruptive
behaviours and screen use and sleep issues and screen use.
And they tend to have more control over their access
to screens, Uh, and less parental control.
And that's how nature is meant to be. That's biologically
right for adolescents to have that control over their lives.
(17:26):
But it can be that if there's less oversight, then
some teens can choose to spend a lot of time
using screens and not sleep, and then have problems with
getting up in the morning the next day and concentrating
in the classroom the next day. And they may fall
asleep during the day, and then that just leads to
the cycle of poor sleep and and poor daytime arousal.
Nick Haslam (17:47):
So it's not so much that the screen use for
the adolescents is impairing their attentional capacity so much. It's
more their attentional performance, given the level of tiredness, something
like that.
Cassie Hayward (17:58):
So in terms of that sleep quality, so you found
that the more screen use the poorer quality not necessarily quantity,
but poorer quality of sleep. Does that have anything to
do with the time they are using the screen? So
if we're thinking about advice that you could give parents,
is it no screens in the two hours before bed?
Or is there anything that can help that sleep quality?
Katherine Johnson (18:20):
So the sleep literature is quite explicit about that, So
the sleep researchers will tell you that try to avoid
that blue light from the screens being emitted one hour
before going to bed and sleep hygiene. That ability to
make sure that your bedroom is free of devices and
distractions and that you've got a safe place that's quiet
(18:40):
to sleep is really important for a good night's sleep.
So good quality of sleep. And then hopefully, if you
have a regular period of time when you go to
bed each night, then you get a good amount of sleep,
so quality and duration will both be good.
Cassie Hayward (18:54):
Yeah, and I think it's really useful for parents to
keep that in mind that that screen use might lead
to poorer quality of sleep. What can we look out
for in terms of markers of poor quality sleep? We
might just think, Oh, they're sleeping 10 hours. That's great.
But what can we kind of look out for as
an indication that maybe our kids aren't getting the quality
of sleep, which may be related to the screen use?
Katherine Johnson (19:16):
I don't know the exact connections between actual screen use
and poor quality of sleep. But the poor quality of
sleep coming through in this sleep survey is things like
waking up in the middle of the night, not being
able to get back to sleep, and being hot and
restless during the night, wanting to climb into your bed.
That sort of quality is not good.
Cassie Hayward (19:35):
Yeah, OK, that's good. I think they're good tips for
parents to keep in mind, too. Are there any other
tips again? I'm putting my mum hat on here. Any
other tips we can give parents in terms of regulating screen,
use anything around attention that your study would suggest that
parents could do to help their kids? I mean, we're
not talking about banning screens But what could they do
to help their kids have a positive experience with screen use?
Katherine Johnson (20:00):
Let the children choose the games that they play, but
you just regulate it, so check what it is that
they're playing and ensure that it's got some brain workings
in it. So it's got strategy. It's got problem solving.
It's maybe competitive with other friends. So it has a
social element and that you can see that they enjoy
it because you want them to enjoy that time.
And it doesn't have to be overtly educational, and it
(20:22):
can be. If it's creative, that's really good as well.
And then you can use it as a positive reinforcement.
So if they love playing it, so you get them
to do the piano practise first, and then they can
play on a device, Um, or you get them to
finish their homework first, and then they can play on
the device.
Be aware little kids don't have a good sense of time,
so if they want to play on their screens between
(20:43):
breakfast and getting into the car to go to school
or walking to school, be aware of that because you
don't want to go 'Yeah, Yeah, You can play your
screen device' and then they think they're only going to
be playing for five minutes, but it ends up being
20 minutes, and then you're all running late for school,
and that's really stressful. So just if you're able to
don't let them use it in the morning before school.
But you could use it at the end of the
day when they're a little bit tired and you need
a break to get, you know, your life organised. And
(21:06):
if you can tailor it, then that would be amazing, Uh,
as a positive reinforcement for some behaviour that you want
them to do.
Cassie Hayward (21:12):
And is there any room in that screen use for,
you know, more passive consumption of fun stuff? Or is
it all strategy, creativity? Learning?
Katherine Johnson (21:22):
Yeah. I mean, again, this is about moderation. Um, so
the poor Children they should have some time out as well .
Well, we all we all need to learn to rest,
and we all need to learn to have some chill
out time. It's really important, and little kids need to
learn that, and parents need to role model that parents
need to role model that it's OK to have some
chill out time and not be pestered by other people.
(21:45):
Just as a child needs some chill out time and
isn't pestered by other people. If you can build that
routine into the day, then everyone is going to have
at least some chill out time when they are not
being pestered by other people.
And that sets the child up for learning to look
after themselves well. Yeah, and that may mean hopefully going
(22:05):
outside and spending some time in greenery and nature.
Cassie Hayward (22:08):
I think that's the other side, isn't it? Just balancing
it with exercise and outside and reading. And yes, all
those other things.
Katherine Johnson (22:15):
All those lovely things. So listening to music going for
a play in the park go for a walk with
the dog. But particularly, this is another side fun. Interest
of mine in my research is the benefits of spending
time in nature and how that can be beneficial to
your attention control and your well being. So if you
can get the kids out into the garden and grow
(22:37):
things and learn to acknowledge the trees and the birds
and the flowers and look at the minute details of
the soil and the ants and the bugs and the
which kids love.
And working with nature in that way is actually allowing
their attention systems to rest and to replenish, and then
(23:00):
it's better for them.
Cassie Hayward (23:01):
That's probably good for the parents as well.
Nick Haslam (23:04):
And I think it's important to say here, Katherine, you're
not just being an unimperical hippie. You've actually done science
on this on the benefits of having greenery around. You
want to talk about that a bit?
Katherine Johnson (23:15):
So this is going to sound wacky. But it's not
actually, but spending time in nature. And that can even be
with a pot plant or an image of nature, can
help replenish your attention control on our boring task. So
we've got beautiful work from a former PhD student, Kate Lee,
where we did that exactly and showed that just looking
(23:36):
at 40 seconds of an image of beautiful nature led
to an ability to maintain your attention over time.
But if that break was looking at a concrete roof,
then people's performance diminished over time, and we've also done
other research with another PhD student, Rose McAuley, where we've
had people do our task and then go out for
(23:58):
a 15 minute walk in their chosen nature. This is
in lockdown. So it had to be like, you know,
their balcony or their local park or wherever it was,
and then come back and do the task again.
And there were benefits to spending time in the particular
forms of nature.
We did find interestingly, though, that if people went into
(24:19):
the time spent in nature with a lowered mood, that
could lead to worse performance on the task and additional
lowered mood. So the starting point of spending time in
nature is really important. And so it's not all perfect.
It depends on your well being at the start. But
for most people, it's a wonderful tonic.
Cassie Hayward (24:38):
And I think it all kind of fits together with
your your work in terms of being outside, exercise, nature
and having a balanced use of screen time, which I
think parents listening to this would be really happy to
hear that you can have you know that screen use
isn't always terrible and that you can let your kids
(24:58):
use the screens and balance that with some nature time
and some exercise time.
Yeah, it's all about just telling myself that, But But,
you know, I, I we have a pretty relaxed view
of screen time with our kids, but we're all very active,
and we live near the beach and we get lots
of nature time, and I feel like that balance. It's
nice to hear that that's not just something that I've
made up in my head, that there is some empirical
(25:19):
evidence that having that balance can be really good for
the kids.
Katherine Johnson (25:22):
I agree totally. And the other thing to to note
is that if you're at a cafe or a restaurant
with your kids and you're meeting your friends and you
want to just have some time, adult time, and you
pass the tablet or the phone over to the child,
that's OK, because your child is going to be fine.
But it also means that you're having fun and you're
having stress relief and that you'll be a better parent afterwards. Yeah,
(25:46):
so you'll be kinder and more patient and more tolerant
because you've had some time for yourself, and then you
can then deal with the fluctuations of life in a
better way because you're in a better place, so it's
OK to use screens with your children.
Cassie Hayward (26:03):
I think that's great advice for parents
Nick Haslam (26:05):
So good to hear that wisdom and balance.
Cassie Hayward (26:09):
And also, I just wanted to add on a serious
note that in this episode we are focusing on the
impacts of screens on attention and sleep and school behaviour.
But we, of course, can't ignore the risks that parents
need to be aware of if their kids are online.
In terms of the websites, they are accessing, the apps
they are using or who they are talking to.
Nick Haslam (26:27):
That's a really good point. I mean, there's cyber bullying
and the potential to be talking to people who aren't
who they say they are.
All of those things are real risks that parents need
to talk to their kids about.
Cassie Hayward (26:37):
We've talked about some great tips that parents can use for
their kids. What about adults or parents? But any adult
in general who might want to think about the way
they use their screens? Do you have any advice for
monitoring or kind of keeping track of our own screen use?
Katherine Johnson (26:53):
It's a really good question.
It's about self regulation in the end. So the ability
to that executive control system that we have, one of
the attention systems, So am I doing the right thing
right now? Have I been doing this for too long?
Is this relevant to my goals in my life? Is
this is this, what I'm doing right now, Is this
good for my self care and making myself feel OK
(27:15):
or is it actually a form of procrastination? And I
should be actually getting back to the piece of work
that I really don't want to do?
So it's that ability to regulate yourself. It's at the
core of all behaviours, and and it's hard to be
vigilant and monitor and police yourself. But that's ultimately what
we all need to do to make sure that we're
(27:37):
not spending too much time on really fun, evocative, addictive things.
Cassie Hayward (27:41):
And they're designed that way. They're designed that way. Yeah.
What about using the actual systems in, you know, screen
time limits on phones and things like that. Do you
advise people to actually put those in place?
Katherine Johnson (27:53):
Yeah, Yeah, if they've got problems. For sure. Absolutely. Um, yeah,
you can. There's so many good devices available to stop
you from, um, using your screen. So, for instance, on
your laptop you can ask the Internet to be cut
off for a period of time, and you can set
that time period so you can't access the Internet, which
is good if you need to get a report done.
And so you can yeah, use those tools to help
(28:15):
you reach your own goals.
Cassie Hayward (28:17):
Katherine, thank you so much for coming in today. I
think just personally, it's been very good. But I think
also a lot of people listening will find some really
great tips and hints. And I think about alleviating that
parental guilt around screen use. And using that more wisely,
I think will be really appreciated by our listeners. So
thank you.
Katherine Johnson (28:34):
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Cassie Hayward (28:38):
Thanks for tuning in to psych talks with me, Cassie
Haywood and Nick Haslam. And, of course, our guest today,
Associate Professor Katherine Johnson. This episode was produced by Carly
Godden with production assistance from Louise Sheedy and our sound
engineer was David Calf. If you want to discover more,
we've put the links to some really great resources in
our show notes. And be sure to check out our
(28:58):
other episodes of PsychTalks from wherever you get your podcasts
This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurrundjeri people,
the Woiwurrung and the Boonwurrung, and we would like to pay respects
to their elders, past and present and emerging.
From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
of Melbourne, this is PsychTalks.
(00:22):
Hello and welcome to PsychTalks, where we uncover what the
latest studies in psychology have to say about how our
minds work. I'm Nick Haslam, a professor of psychology here
at the University of Melbourne. And I'm joined by my
co-host associate Professor Cassie Hayward.
Cassie Hayward (00:36):
Hi there, Nick. And we're very excited to talk to
another expert here from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences
about their incredible research.
Nick Haslam (00:43):
So, Cassie, our focus today, Or perhaps I should say
our attention, is on what impacts on our ability to
pay attention and stick to a task.
We're on our screens so much these days. Many folks
at home might be feeling that our ability to concentrate
is in rather short supply.
Cassie Hayward (00:57):
Yes, and I think there's a particular anxiety that parents
share about letting their children play on their phones or
their tablets. And I think our listeners are going to
be very surprised by the results from this recent study
we're covering, because what it shows is that for kids,
this screen time might not actually be quite the devil
it's made out to be.
Nick Haslam (01:14):
Indeed, and to tell us more about it, we're joined by
our fellow researcher, Associate Professor Katherine Johnson, who specialises in
developmental cognitive neuroscience with a special interest in understanding attention
control in children and young people.
Welcome to the show, Katherine. For those of us who
are not as schooled as you are in cognitive neuroscience
and cognitive psychology, you know what is attention?
Katherine Johnson (01:35):
Yeah, great question. Um, so the attention generally is the
idea that we can focus on one particular thing in
a moment in time. So it's our focus, our concentration,
and there are a range of different ways to measure that,
and to conceptualise that, and we've got a number of
different models of attention that are used in the literature.
The models that I use in my research are originally
(01:59):
devised by Michael Posner in the US and his colleagues
and Ian Robertson in Ireland and his colleagues. So Ian
Robertson's work on sustained attention has been preeminent in my research,
he was my boss in Ireland.
And so sustained attention is the ability to maintain your
attention on a task over a period of time, t hat
(02:20):
doesn't give you much feedback, that's quite boring and repetitive
and dull. And so you really need to self regulate
and maintain your attention deliberately, with that focus in mind.
And then attention more generally, there's lots of different types
of attention every second of the day. We are choosing
what we are focusing on, so we need to be
able to be alert and not sleepy. That's one form
(02:44):
of attention, so that alerting feature of being awake and
on the ball and ready to go, that's a whole
network in the brain that helps you be alert, and
it's really, really important for us. We can be overly
alert and become fidgety and a bit hyperactive, or we
can be very sleepy. So we need to have that
Goldilocks range in the middle to perform well.
And then there's another type of attention that's involved in checking.
(03:07):
Are we doing the right thing right now? Are we
meant to be on task? Are we Are we supposed
to be doing this really boring task. Are we still
watching for tigers in the forest? Where is my phone?
It doesn't matter. I'm meant to be focusing on this task.
So this executive control system helps us regulate what we're
doing and why we're doing it.
Cassie Hayward (03:23):
When did you start thinking about the potential impact on
screen use of attention problems?
Katherine Johnson (03:30):
Probably 2019. And it was that research where we looked
at screen usage was looking at a big bunch of
children who are just from the general classroom. So we
weren't targeting children with a particular problem with attention or
any other difficulty. We were just looking at our typical
classroom and looking at the abilities of children to maintain
(03:54):
and concentrate and hold their attention to a task.
And we were interested in how that might relate to
their academic performance and what their classroom behaviour is like
as rated by teachers. And we are running this large
longitudinal study that's funded by the Australian Research Council. This
is my colleague, Professor Kim Cornish and myself. She's at
Monash University, and we kept getting questions from family and
(04:19):
friends about screen use.
It's a really hot topic, especially for parents of little
Children where the parents need a break and they need
to go and have lunch with their friends at the cafe.
And they feel some shame and guilt around giving their
toddler or their young child or their primary school child
their tablet or their phone to use. So we were
interested to see if there was actually any impact of
(04:42):
screen use on the child's attention and their behaviour. So
it was really like a point of research because we
were being asked about it socially.
Cassie Hayward (04:50):
Hi, I'm a mum of three little kids. And I
can tell you there is a lot of concern and
guilt around the topic of screen use. Is that concern
any different to what we had generations ago about 'There's
too much TV or too much video games?' Or is
this just a new worry about a similar thing? Or
is there something different about screen use?
Katherine Johnson (05:10):
It's exactly the same problem. It's this idea that we
are not entertaining our children ourselves, and so there's something
wrong with whatever it is the substitute proxy that we
are giving to allow the child to have some time
to themselves so that the poor parents and carers can
have some time to themselves, so it's exactly the same problem.
TV video games, tablets, Nintendo, whatever it is.
Cassie Hayward (05:32):
I have all of those things in our house, um, so
can we alleviate some of the guilt that parents feel
around screen use?
Katherine Johnson (05:39):
Well, based on our research, this is one study. We
can alleviate some of that guilt. Yes, So do you
want me to tell you about that research?
Cassie Hayward (05:46):
I would love for you to tell us about that research,
and I'm going to print it out and stick it
on in the fridge.
Katherine Johnson (05:52):
So apps on phones and tablets and computer games are
fantastic entertainment for all of us. They are mostly interactive,
so there's some information being provided to the child. The
child receives information and gives information back, so it might
be that they make choices or they respond. And then
there's a response back. So these apps have got novel features,
(06:13):
and there's a lot of positive reinforcement going on, and
some kids actually do have problems in the sense that
they continue to play these games for many hours.
And that is a cause for concern. So we were
interested to see whether spending time on different types of
screens was associated with any classroom behavioural problems and whether
it had any associations with the ability of the child
(06:35):
to sustain their attention.
We were also interested in the issue of sleep, so
we were wondering whether children might be spending time playing
games and on their tablet or their parents' phone and
not sleeping. So we wanted to ask these two different
questions together. Hand in hand. We know that sleep is really,
(06:57):
really important for child development of the brain, and it's
really important for a child being attentive at school, behaving
well and learning well.
So sleep is really, really important. So poor sleep is
associated with poorer, efficient attention, poorer, sustained attention. So if
you are tired, you are more likely to perform badly
on boring tasks. We all have that experience.
(07:20):
There was an interesting hypothesis linking the amount of screen
time a child might have with their sleep. And this
is the displacement hypothesis, which is just saying that instead
of a child curling up under the doona with a
book and a torch, they might be playing on their
tablet and is that worse? We don't know. So we
wanted to ask that question about sleep and screen use
(07:43):
and the child's ability to sustain their attention.
And happily, we have this beautiful task that only takes
5.5 minutes. We tested 162 children, and they were about
seven years of age, and we found that 94% of
the children watch TV and 82% used a tablet. But
less than half of the participants used a phone or
(08:05):
a video game. So we had 40% of the children
had used a phone in that past week, and only 33%
had used a video game. So these are seven year olds,
and that's probably right. Yeah, we weren't surprised by that.
Nick Haslam (08:16):
So just to interrupt. I mean, do you trust the
parents to give accurate reports on these things?
Cassie Hayward (08:21):
A parent of a seven year old?
Nick Haslam (08:22):
I'm sure you're very trustworthy. But I mean again, obviously, you can only
rely on there's no better data than from the parents,
but But were they trustworthy? Do you think?
Katherine Johnson (08:31):
I think so? Yes, That seemed to be fine with
what we would expect. Seven year olds tend to borrow
their parents' phones to use them, and they may well
have a tablet or have readily access to a tablet.
And definitely TV.
Cassie Hayward (08:43):
This cohort of Children were from across Victoria. So we
had a set of children in the metropolitan regions of Melbourne.
But we also went out and tested children in regional
towns and tiny little rural towns. And so we made
sure that we had this beautiful spread of children from
across Victoria. Also a spread across SES sectors. And we
(09:03):
tested children from government schools, Catholic schools and independent schools.
Nick Haslam (09:07):
So, by SES, you mean socio-economic status, sort of rich
versus poor schools?
Katherine Johnson (09:12):
Yes. So we used a measure of socio economic status
from the areas around each school.
Cassie Hayward (09:18):
So we've got this beautiful range of different types of
children doing your study. So you've got the reported screen
use and then they do this attention task. Right. So
your 5.5 minute boring task, how did they perform?
Katherine Johnson (09:34):
They perform like seven year old. So they made they
made quite a few errors. So there's a way that
you can measure different parts of performance on this task.
So the task is you have one digit, say number
one coming up on the computer screen in front of
the child.
And then after a second or so, the next digit
comes up. And in this version of the task, the
(09:54):
next digit is number two, followed by number three, right
up to nine, and then it flips back to number
one again. Number two number three. And the task for
the child is to respond to every digit except number three,
so most of the time they are responding. But occasionally
they need to
withhold their response, and they can predict when that withhold
(10:14):
is coming up. So as soon as there's a flip
from the nine back to the one again, they know
that three is coming up and they need to withhold
the press. But the trick, of course, is that you
get lulled into this boring task and you press the
three accidentally. So when you do that, that's called a
commission error. So you've committed an error.
A child will just go off task so they'll just
(10:35):
stop doing the task and they'll look out the window
and then they'll go. Oh, I have to do the
task and they'll start doing the task again. And so
all the digits that they've just missed, they're measures of omission.
So they've omitted a response, and so that's a really
nice measure of attention control.
They've just gone off task and they've had a moment
and then they come back on task again and we
all we all do that. But children particularly do that.
(10:57):
And then for all the times when they are pressing appropriately,
we can measure how fast they've responded, but also how
variably they are responding. So we get a measure of
their average response time so it might be for seven
year old children. That might be 800 milliseconds to respond
to the digit. But we want to see how variably
they respond.
So if they are about to lose their attention, they
(11:19):
may take a while to respond, and they'll have a
slow response. And then if they come back on task again,
they may rush through and then press quite quickly. And
so the longer the amount of screen time
Cassie Hayward (11:30):
And this is all screens?
Katherine Johnson (11:32):
All screens, yep. It didn't predict their behaviour in the classroom, so there
was no association between how long a child spent on
screens and their behaviour in the classroom.
Cassie Hayward (11:42):
So what you're saying is, in your study, the amount
of time that a child spent watching a screen didn't
impact their performance on that boring task.
Katherine Johnson (11:50):
Yeah,
Nick Haslam (11:51):
Goes against the hypothesis that it's rotting your brain.
Katherine Johnson (11:53):
Oh, yeah, but I never believed that. Yeah,
Cassie Hayward (11:55):
yeah, yeah, yeah, I think there'll be parents who are
surprised by that finding who buy into this idea that
all screen use is terrible and that must be having
some bad impact on their children.
Katherine Johnson (12:06):
Oh, well, let's talk about that for a second, then,
because there are different types of screen use, right? So this
won't come as a surprise to us. But video games
and tablet and phone have a lot of apps that
are really good for children's attention control. So I don't
want to foreshadow our results.
But there are lots of really interesting games that are
encouraging children to use strategy to respond quickly and accurately
(12:30):
and to maintain their attention over time. And these are
all things that we want to encourage in children, and
the more that we can encourage that through variation in
different apps, the better. I think you don't want children
on screens for a really long period of time, but
there's a lot of benefits to spending time using these creative,
strategy based educational apps.
(12:51):
The things you don't want the children to do are
watching adult TV that's not designed for children. So that's
where they are coming across themes that are not appropriate
for their age group and TVs can be - unless it's
child friendly and it's designed for interactive work with children -
can be a bit mindless, and that's where the brain
rotting might come in, where the child is just staring
(13:12):
at the TV and not engaging their brain passive. It's
a very passive consumption. Yes, I think that's what you
want to avoid.
Cassie Hayward (13:19):
And we should probably say here that passive consumption of
content can, of course, happen through tablets and other screens,
not just TV. So I guess it's important to keep
in mind that regardless of the type of screen, it's
that mindless or passive consumption that's a concern.
Katherine Johnson (13:32):
Yeah, yeah,
Cassie Hayward (13:33):
And as I said, I've got three kids who are
8, 7 and six, and they do use screens. But I
must admit, I've been surprised at how, kind of creative
a lot of the games are even on, you know,
Nintendo platforms, they can play Minecraft. I was kind of
against Minecraft at the start. I now love it because
they have to think it's strategy. It's building. It's creativity.
Katherine Johnson (13:52):
Yeah, it's fantastic
Cassie Hayward (13:52):
And they love it. It's a game to them, but
you can see that there's something more than just play going.
Katherine Johnson (13:58):
Oh, yeah, that's right. Exactly right. So what we found
was the the more time spent using tablets and playing
video games, the better the child performed on the boring task,
so they made less omission errors. So they went off
task less often the more they spent time on tablets
and video games.
Cassie Hayward (14:17):
Is that because they're used to interacting with some type
of screen based game, like do they kind of get the?
Katherine Johnson (14:24):
I'm sure it's a practise effect, but you're practising a
system that you want to practise. It's a system where
you are trying to engage with the teacher who is standing,
I'm sure being amazing, but like, you know, teaching them
different bits and pieces that they need to learn, and
the child has to sit there and listen and take
that information in and use their sustained attention system. And
so you want that to be practised.
(14:47):
And if it's on a task that they find engaging
that uses their strategy and thinking skills, thinking about the
next move to make and how to get around an
obstacle or whatever the game is getting them to do,
then that's brilliant.
Nick Haslam (15:01):
Well, the really clear message that I'm hearing is that
screens aren't bad for kids. Sounds to me, at least ,
In your study, it seems unlikely
Cassie Hayward (15:07):
that definitely what I heard.
Katherine Johnson (15:10):
The only thing that you want to pay attention to, though,
is that the more time the child spent using tablets,
the poorer their sleep quality.
Nick Haslam (15:19):
Did you find any evidence for that displacement hypothesis you
mentioned earlier? Which I think is the idea that the
more you are on tablets, the less time you have
to sleep, and that might have negative implications.
Katherine Johnson (15:30):
Yes, so we wanted to see whether the use of
screen devices had a direct effect on sustained attention performance,
and it did in the sense that there was a better
sustained attention performance with more time spent using tablets and
playing video games.
And we were also interested to see if there was
an association between time spent on devices and sleep. And
(15:53):
there was, so more time spent on tablets was associated
with poor sleep quality but not duration.
But then we also tested for whether there was a
mediating effect of sleep. So was it the case that
children were spending time on tablets that led to poorer
sleep quality or poorer sleep duration? That then had an
(16:13):
effect on performance on the boring task or classroom behaviour?
And that was not the case. So there are two
separate effects.
Cassie Hayward (16:21):
So, Katherine, what I'm hearing is that kids who spent
more time on devices were more likely to have poorer
sleep quality, not necessarily time spent asleep, but the actual
quality of that sleep, and that poorer sleep was also
related to poorer classroom behaviour. But those two findings are separate.
It's not only those who had a lot of screen
time that had the bad sleep.
Nick Haslam (16:42):
So your participants in this study are aged 6 to 8.
They are quite small. You don't find this relationship between
screen use and inattention in class, which is terrific and
I think surprising and a really important research message. Do
you think you'd find the same things with older kids?
Maybe who are engaging in more gaming? Maybe you might
find more sleep displacement among teenagers?
Katherine Johnson (17:04):
Absolutely. That is definitely the case. So previous research has
found with adolescents that there is an association between disruptive
behaviours and screen use and sleep issues and screen use.
And they tend to have more control over their access
to screens, Uh, and less parental control.
And that's how nature is meant to be. That's biologically
right for adolescents to have that control over their lives.
(17:26):
But it can be that if there's less oversight, then
some teens can choose to spend a lot of time
using screens and not sleep, and then have problems with
getting up in the morning the next day and concentrating
in the classroom the next day. And they may fall
asleep during the day, and then that just leads to
the cycle of poor sleep and and poor daytime arousal.
Nick Haslam (17:47):
So it's not so much that the screen use for
the adolescents is impairing their attentional capacity so much. It's
more their attentional performance, given the level of tiredness, something
like that.
Cassie Hayward (17:58):
So in terms of that sleep quality, so you found
that the more screen use the poorer quality not necessarily quantity,
but poorer quality of sleep. Does that have anything to
do with the time they are using the screen? So
if we're thinking about advice that you could give parents,
is it no screens in the two hours before bed?
Or is there anything that can help that sleep quality?
Katherine Johnson (18:20):
So the sleep literature is quite explicit about that, So
the sleep researchers will tell you that try to avoid
that blue light from the screens being emitted one hour
before going to bed and sleep hygiene. That ability to
make sure that your bedroom is free of devices and
distractions and that you've got a safe place that's quiet
(18:40):
to sleep is really important for a good night's sleep.
So good quality of sleep. And then hopefully, if you
have a regular period of time when you go to
bed each night, then you get a good amount of sleep,
so quality and duration will both be good.
Cassie Hayward (18:54):
Yeah, and I think it's really useful for parents to
keep that in mind that that screen use might lead
to poorer quality of sleep. What can we look out
for in terms of markers of poor quality sleep? We
might just think, Oh, they're sleeping 10 hours. That's great.
But what can we kind of look out for as
an indication that maybe our kids aren't getting the quality
of sleep, which may be related to the screen use?
Katherine Johnson (19:16):
I don't know the exact connections between actual screen use
and poor quality of sleep. But the poor quality of
sleep coming through in this sleep survey is things like
waking up in the middle of the night, not being
able to get back to sleep, and being hot and
restless during the night, wanting to climb into your bed.
That sort of quality is not good.
Cassie Hayward (19:35):
Yeah, OK, that's good. I think they're good tips for
parents to keep in mind, too. Are there any other
tips again? I'm putting my mum hat on here. Any
other tips we can give parents in terms of regulating screen,
use anything around attention that your study would suggest that
parents could do to help their kids? I mean, we're
not talking about banning screens But what could they do
to help their kids have a positive experience with screen use?
Katherine Johnson (20:00):
Let the children choose the games that they play, but
you just regulate it, so check what it is that
they're playing and ensure that it's got some brain workings
in it. So it's got strategy. It's got problem solving.
It's maybe competitive with other friends. So it has a
social element and that you can see that they enjoy
it because you want them to enjoy that time.
And it doesn't have to be overtly educational, and it
(20:22):
can be. If it's creative, that's really good as well.
And then you can use it as a positive reinforcement.
So if they love playing it, so you get them
to do the piano practise first, and then they can
play on a device, Um, or you get them to
finish their homework first, and then they can play on
the device.
Be aware little kids don't have a good sense of time,
so if they want to play on their screens between
(20:43):
breakfast and getting into the car to go to school
or walking to school, be aware of that because you
don't want to go 'Yeah, Yeah, You can play your
screen device' and then they think they're only going to
be playing for five minutes, but it ends up being
20 minutes, and then you're all running late for school,
and that's really stressful. So just if you're able to
don't let them use it in the morning before school.
But you could use it at the end of the
day when they're a little bit tired and you need
a break to get, you know, your life organised. And
(21:06):
if you can tailor it, then that would be amazing, Uh,
as a positive reinforcement for some behaviour that you want
them to do.
Cassie Hayward (21:12):
And is there any room in that screen use for,
you know, more passive consumption of fun stuff? Or is
it all strategy, creativity? Learning?
Katherine Johnson (21:22):
Yeah. I mean, again, this is about moderation. Um, so
the poor Children they should have some time out as well .
Well, we all we all need to learn to rest,
and we all need to learn to have some chill
out time. It's really important, and little kids need to
learn that, and parents need to role model that parents
need to role model that it's OK to have some
chill out time and not be pestered by other people.
(21:45):
Just as a child needs some chill out time and
isn't pestered by other people. If you can build that
routine into the day, then everyone is going to have
at least some chill out time when they are not
being pestered by other people.
And that sets the child up for learning to look
after themselves well. Yeah, and that may mean hopefully going
(22:05):
outside and spending some time in greenery and nature.
Cassie Hayward (22:08):
I think that's the other side, isn't it? Just balancing
it with exercise and outside and reading. And yes, all
those other things.
Katherine Johnson (22:15):
All those lovely things. So listening to music going for
a play in the park go for a walk with
the dog. But particularly, this is another side fun. Interest
of mine in my research is the benefits of spending
time in nature and how that can be beneficial to
your attention control and your well being. So if you
can get the kids out into the garden and grow
(22:37):
things and learn to acknowledge the trees and the birds
and the flowers and look at the minute details of
the soil and the ants and the bugs and the
which kids love.
And working with nature in that way is actually allowing
their attention systems to rest and to replenish, and then
(23:00):
it's better for them.
Cassie Hayward (23:01):
That's probably good for the parents as well.
Nick Haslam (23:04):
And I think it's important to say here, Katherine, you're
not just being an unimperical hippie. You've actually done science
on this on the benefits of having greenery around. You
want to talk about that a bit?
Katherine Johnson (23:15):
So this is going to sound wacky. But it's not
actually, but spending time in nature. And that can even be
with a pot plant or an image of nature, can
help replenish your attention control on our boring task. So
we've got beautiful work from a former PhD student, Kate Lee,
where we did that exactly and showed that just looking
(23:36):
at 40 seconds of an image of beautiful nature led
to an ability to maintain your attention over time.
But if that break was looking at a concrete roof,
then people's performance diminished over time, and we've also done
other research with another PhD student, Rose McAuley, where we've
had people do our task and then go out for
(23:58):
a 15 minute walk in their chosen nature. This is
in lockdown. So it had to be like, you know,
their balcony or their local park or wherever it was,
and then come back and do the task again.
And there were benefits to spending time in the particular
forms of nature.
We did find interestingly, though, that if people went into
(24:19):
the time spent in nature with a lowered mood, that
could lead to worse performance on the task and additional
lowered mood. So the starting point of spending time in
nature is really important. And so it's not all perfect.
It depends on your well being at the start. But
for most people, it's a wonderful tonic.
Cassie Hayward (24:38):
And I think it all kind of fits together with
your your work in terms of being outside, exercise, nature
and having a balanced use of screen time, which I
think parents listening to this would be really happy to
hear that you can have you know that screen use
isn't always terrible and that you can let your kids
(24:58):
use the screens and balance that with some nature time
and some exercise time.
Yeah, it's all about just telling myself that, But But,
you know, I, I we have a pretty relaxed view
of screen time with our kids, but we're all very active,
and we live near the beach and we get lots
of nature time, and I feel like that balance. It's
nice to hear that that's not just something that I've
made up in my head, that there is some empirical
(25:19):
evidence that having that balance can be really good for
the kids.
Katherine Johnson (25:22):
I agree totally. And the other thing to to note
is that if you're at a cafe or a restaurant
with your kids and you're meeting your friends and you
want to just have some time, adult time, and you
pass the tablet or the phone over to the child,
that's OK, because your child is going to be fine.
But it also means that you're having fun and you're
having stress relief and that you'll be a better parent afterwards. Yeah,
(25:46):
so you'll be kinder and more patient and more tolerant
because you've had some time for yourself, and then you
can then deal with the fluctuations of life in a
better way because you're in a better place, so it's
OK to use screens with your children.
Cassie Hayward (26:03):
I think that's great advice for parents
Nick Haslam (26:05):
So good to hear that wisdom and balance.
Cassie Hayward (26:09):
And also, I just wanted to add on a serious
note that in this episode we are focusing on the
impacts of screens on attention and sleep and school behaviour.
But we, of course, can't ignore the risks that parents
need to be aware of if their kids are online.
In terms of the websites, they are accessing, the apps
they are using or who they are talking to.
Nick Haslam (26:27):
That's a really good point. I mean, there's cyber bullying
and the potential to be talking to people who aren't
who they say they are.
All of those things are real risks that parents need
to talk to their kids about.
Cassie Hayward (26:37):
We've talked about some great tips that parents can use for
their kids. What about adults or parents? But any adult
in general who might want to think about the way
they use their screens? Do you have any advice for
monitoring or kind of keeping track of our own screen use?
Katherine Johnson (26:53):
It's a really good question.
It's about self regulation in the end. So the ability
to that executive control system that we have, one of
the attention systems, So am I doing the right thing
right now? Have I been doing this for too long?
Is this relevant to my goals in my life? Is
this is this, what I'm doing right now, Is this
good for my self care and making myself feel OK
(27:15):
or is it actually a form of procrastination? And I
should be actually getting back to the piece of work
that I really don't want to do?
So it's that ability to regulate yourself. It's at the
core of all behaviours, and and it's hard to be
vigilant and monitor and police yourself. But that's ultimately what
we all need to do to make sure that we're
(27:37):
not spending too much time on really fun, evocative, addictive things.
Cassie Hayward (27:41):
And they're designed that way. They're designed that way. Yeah.
What about using the actual systems in, you know, screen
time limits on phones and things like that. Do you
advise people to actually put those in place?
Katherine Johnson (27:53):
Yeah, Yeah, if they've got problems. For sure. Absolutely. Um, yeah,
you can. There's so many good devices available to stop
you from, um, using your screen. So, for instance, on
your laptop you can ask the Internet to be cut
off for a period of time, and you can set
that time period so you can't access the Internet, which
is good if you need to get a report done.
And so you can yeah, use those tools to help
(28:15):
you reach your own goals.
Cassie Hayward (28:17):
Katherine, thank you so much for coming in today. I
think just personally, it's been very good. But I think
also a lot of people listening will find some really
great tips and hints. And I think about alleviating that
parental guilt around screen use. And using that more wisely,
I think will be really appreciated by our listeners. So
thank you.
Katherine Johnson (28:34):
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Cassie Hayward (28:38):
Thanks for tuning in to psych talks with me, Cassie
Haywood and Nick Haslam. And, of course, our guest today,
Associate Professor Katherine Johnson. This episode was produced by Carly
Godden with production assistance from Louise Sheedy and our sound
engineer was David Calf. If you want to discover more,
we've put the links to some really great resources in
our show notes. And be sure to check out our
(28:58):
other episodes of PsychTalks from wherever you get your podcasts
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