Critical Periods: Childhood Screen Use
Critical Periods: Brain Plasticity, Developmental Windows, and Childhood Screen Use
By Andrea Liss
Looking for a little advice about your relationship? Perhaps you have questions about parenting? Ask Andrea! Our social worker, Andrea Liss will pick one question a month and answer it in our newsletter. You can submit your questions anonymously to her at https://forms.office.com/r/F3rxQKvTdQ
Dear OUTCAN community,
In this month’s CFMWS OUTCAN monthly newsletter Ask Andrea article I thought I’d present to you the idea of “critical periods. This concept describes the key time window in which human beings’ brains and bodies remain malleable and open to imprinting and other learning. Specifically, there is now considerable evidence that language learning, motor functions, personality development, and socialization- to name a few human developmental tasks- essentially have an “open” and then “closed” timeframe. And since I recently spent three hours with a beautiful bouncing five-month-old and part of this time I was also participating in a family zoom call, I began to think about the impact of screen time on kids. Being with a baby on a zoom call was then on my mind as I listened to a podcast series recently that introduced the idea of “critical periods” to me. Let me tell you about the podcast that prompted this article, and then I’ll leave you with a few resources and ideas on critical periods and screen use.
One of my favourite podcasts is On Being with Krista Tippett. In On Being, Ms. Tippett, a former American public media host, interviews scientists, poets, and philosophers on the deep dynamics of life. I am always in awe of the positive outlook of experts: they embody and model hard work and possibility. It is their deep commitment to curiosity, grit and ambition for discovery that create scientific advances. So, when you listen to neuroscientist Gul Dolen in the interview with Krista Tippett I hope you will be inspired like I was.
The interview (link below) is about recent advances in psychedelic science. I was not expecting to come to know of the idea of “critical periods” in a psychedelic science podcast. But the notion of “critical periods” is one of the most important concepts to understand when it comes to appreciating how psychedelic treatments work. What I learned is that psychedelics reopen the brain such that it can relearn what has been damaged by severe psychological injury. The reopening afforded by psychedelic medicines, coupled with simultaneous treatment by a trained psychotherapist, allows patients to see their trauma or addiction in a new and less threatening way and with permanent impacts. This reopening of a learning space occurs during the phase of psychedelic treatment known as the “administration phase” and lasts for as long as the “critical period” lasts (this varies depending on the type of psychedelic that is administered). For example, important advances are being made in the administration of Ibogaine which induces a dream-like state which is thought to last for several weeks. This time period is considered the “critical period” where significant psychological alterations can be made. The “critical period” has a beginning and end. And it’s this finding that is relevant to understanding our children and how screen use is affecting them. Listening to this podcast allowed me to better appreciate what the core problem of childhood screen use is in children. With unbridled screen use, at the expense of social development, a child’s capacity to optimally be with others is impaired. Screen use cannot overtake a child’s life to the exclusion of all else. Childhood only comes once and thus we have one and only one critical period to encode essential social learning.
Human sociability is a developmental task that has a critical period for optimal child social skill acquisition. Parental shaping of screen time in a way that respects this critical period is the most important knowledge that parents can have. Keeping in mind the idea that there is a specific window of time that is a critical period for your child’s social learning will give you the easiest and most poignant rationale for child screen-time parameter-setting.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Drop me a line and let me know what think!
Andrea
PS: I urge you to listen to this wonderful interview. Listen to the whole thing so you can learn about PTSD, Ibogaine, what oneirogen means, antidepressants, SSRI withdrawal, critical periods, neuroscience, hyper plasticity, autism, addiction, and octopuses on ecstasy! Hopefully listening to the podcast will demystify the use of psychedelic medicine in treating mental health conditions and open your mind a bit more to the magic of science.
Resources
- On Being Podcast Series, Gul Dolan on Psychedelic Science and Radical Healing: https://onbeing.org/programs/gul-dolen-psychedelic-science-and-radical-healing/
- Korand Lorenz information on imprinting and critical periods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UIU9XH-mUI
- Konrad Lorenz National Geographic Educational Presentation 1975 (funnily enough narrated by our very own funny Canadian Leslie Nielsen). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IysBMqaSAC8
- Science article on how psychedelics reopen the social reward learning critical period https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06204-3
Support is also available in your OUTCAN area. If you or your family would benefit from speaking with a social worker during your OUTCAN posting, we encourage you to contact your regional CFMWS Social Worker:
USA: Marion Hall — hall.marion@cfmws.com
Europe: MFSSocialwork@cfmws.com
Global / Rest of World: Andrea Liss — liss.andrea@cfmws.com
