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So parents have to make a crucial decision vis-a-vis the environment and the brain development of their children?

Good luck making your decision giving too much weight to recent studies, which will probably be validated 20 years from now; if.

Children growing up without screen time have stood the test of time (think robustness); I’m not so certain the ones growing up with iPads will.

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Anecdotally, but I'm already seeing it in high school age kids. These kids haven't really grown up without access to a smartphone, and you can tell the difference in how they interact with each other. There's a lot less social talking, and they don't understand emotions or empathy very well at all. And heaven forbid you try to get them to put down the damn phone and take notes or do something.

"Why do I need to learn this when photomath does it for me?" was often heard, or they'd just Google the answers because they're there. They work a lot less hard to try to get stuff, and it hurts their discipline and focus, for sure. And I'm going to stop my rant there, because I could continue on with it forever.

apropos of nothing, I had not heard of photomath until your comment. I’m 40 and it’s like…magic. I understand how it all works, I even write image processing models...but it’s like having a magic wand that turns your A-Level questions into answers. Astounding. I can see why it’s a problem…

I think I’ve heard it in an interview with the physician Gabor Maté, that the prefontal cortex is responsible – among other things – for empathy, and he was making the case that in the modern age, the conditions for the proper development of the prefrontal cortex are not sufficiently met, because kids nowadays are exposed too much to social media and too little to physical interactions with other kids and other adults. Thus, the newer generations will most likely be deficient in the empathy department; and empathy is very important as it allows one to see things from another person's perspective and understand other people's emotions, which is crucial for effective communication.

This is also the kind of skills that helps again social conflicts and things like wars. This is worrying indeed.

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