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The Brain As A Technology Driven Pathway

Mayra Flores-Orellana

George Mason University

Author Note

Mayra Flores-Orellana, Department of Psychology, George Mason University.

Correspondence concerning this research should be sent to the author, Department of

Psychology, George Mason University 4400 University Dr. Fairfax, VA 22030

Email: mfloreso@masonlive.gmu.edu
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Introduction

This research paper will have discussion that takes place on various topics that relate to

how children learn through the use of technology. Children who are born into the technology era

have to learn to adapt to their surrounding as well as to a screen. The exposure to technology

helps infants acquire information on basic knowledge like counting, pronouncing, and the ability

to recognize different objects, since it can all be found through a monitor. Since children have

been provided with a different way of learning, the presence of technology has been seen to

improve as well as alter the way children learn. Before learning through paper and pencil

children would be able to get physical experience with the concept at hand, but through

technology, although studies have shown its effectiveness there is little information on the extra

steps it may take to learn and process the information. The sources that will be used throughout

this paper are scholarly articles, journals, and websites. These sources provide in-depth

information about a child’s formation of behavior and language, that are learned through their

interaction with the environment and continuously changes with how widespread technology has

become.

There is a growing body of research on how technologies led by the internet, are shaping

the way children think in ways that can be both beneficial and harmful. Scientist have done

studies that show that a person’s way of thinking is influenced by experiences and knowledge.

Since technology is rapidly advancing being able to determine the cost and values have been

limited to time. The research on how technology benefits and limits the mind is seen in various

studies in how it affects different brain regions. Studies have shown that technology has a great

influence in the rewiring of children’s brain. The areas that have been shown to have a
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counteracting influence by the rapid spread of technology are attention, decision making, and

memory/learning, all of which are tied to thinking.

Video Chats

Since technology has been rapidly growing, it has been difficult to study every aspect of

its impact on the development of a child. In a recent published 2018 study by Elizabeth R.

McClure called, Look at That! Video Chat and Joint Visual Attention Development Among

Babies and Toddlers, it was mentioned that before this study, “there was no existing research

examining natural video chat use by babies under two in their own homes” (McClure, et al.,

2018, p. 33). There are still topics that have gaps that need to be connected, in order to explain

and understand how technology benefits and challenges a child’s brain growth. An emerging

area of research concentrated in how technology is applied by families in their everyday lives,

helps connect gaps in specifically the areas where the rise of technology affects a child.

This study concentrated on the region of the brain related to attention, specifically the

development of joint visual attention. The psychologist working on this study were focused on

looking for answers to what dictates babies from engaging in successful JVA during video chat

interactions. As children grow they are constantly learning and adapting to their surroundings,

“JVA develops rapidly during the first two years of life […] video chats may make it difficult for

babies and toddlers to successfully participate in what we will call across-screen JVA”

(McClure, et al., 2018, p. 28). In order for a child to be able to successfully engage in JVA, they

have to be able to make their focus of attention be what another person’s focus of attention is.

Through the use of technology, there have been limitations in how children educationally

participate in video chats. A reason behind the challenges present is that video chat cameras are

placed above the screen, so when a grandparent “points to something in the baby’s environment
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as displayed on their own screen, [they are] actually referencing a point well below the camera’s

aperture” (McClure, et al., 2018, p. 28). Since there is a misalignment of where attention needs to

be focused through the use of video chats, there are different steps to take in order to accurately

reference a point in the child’s environment.

There are two types of JVA that this study focused on, the first is across-screen JVA

which was mentioned earlier and the second is within-screen JVA. The second type of JVA is

what helps a child successfully engage in directing their attention to the object being referenced.

Since there are limitations due to the location of the camera, “a grandmother [bringing] a teacup

up to the camera […] allows the child to more easily follow the grandmother’s attention to that

teacup” (McClure, et al., p. 28, 2018), surpassing the technical challenges that are presented

through technology. The findings of this study showed that the use of technology as a means of

communicating with distant family members had complications in a child’s focus of attention.

Although, technology has shown to have limitations it also has found a way to surpass the

challenges that it presents. Psychologist in this study have found that within-screen JVA results

in a child successful engagement, but there are still questions left unanswered on the successful

engagement in across-screen JVA since there are other variables present. For example, the

amount of across-screen JVA that should be used in order to significantly predict a baby’s

successful engagement in attention.

Television and DVD/Video

The recent study of JVA centered on a child’s ability to focus and engage with an object.

A study by Frederick J. Zimmerman called, Television and DVD/Video viewing in children

younger than 2 years focuses on connecting how a child’s attention is spread out and applied to

technology. This study adds on to the understanding of how the development of the way a child
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thinks is influenced by how attention is shaped by interactions. In this study researchers looked

at the type of content children engage with, the four categories were “children’s educational,

children’s non-educational, baby DVDs/videos, and grown-up television” (Zimmerman, et al.,

2007, p. 474), it connected these categories to the time spent watching with age of the viewer

(ranging from 2-24 months). Technology is accessible in many forms and the content it provides

ranges from educational to entertainment. In figure 2, the graph shows that the category of

grown-up television is what children are exposed to for most at the time. At three months old

infants had a view time of 1 hour to content that wasn’t intended for their use. Then at 24

months, children were viewing almost 2 hours of content that again had no educational value to

them.

Although children are aware of the technology around them, they don’t have control over

the content that they are exposed too. Since there are different types of content available from

most educational to least for example, some shows like Sesame Street, Blues Clues, and

SpongeBob SquarePants. How their attention is used to successfully direct towards objects or

ideas is based on the program itself. In this article it is brought to attention how “parents turn to

television and DVDs/videos as an electronic babysitter” (Zimmerman, et al., 2007, p. 476), a

babysitter that will grab a child’s attention for a longer period of time. The findings of this study

concluded that children spend more time paying attention to content that is for pure

entertainment and less time on content that is educational. The reason for this outcome was based

off of the parental beliefs of “little sound rationale for coding any particular show as educational

vs. entertainment” (Zimmerman, et al., 2007, p. 478), there has been little research on the

benefits of the content children are watching. The spread of technology has allowed little time to

be able to focus on exactly one aspect that’ll determine its effects and relevance to brain growth.
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Language Development

The way a child’s brain is rewired is a result of what they are exposed to. The more they

interact with technology, the more likely they are going to advance in qualities that are interface

driven. In the JVA study, by Elizabeth R. McClure part of the reason why infants/toddlers were

able to successfully engage in JVA was because there was the presence of an adult engaging with

them and elaborating in great detail the object of attention. A study called, Infant Media

Exposure and Toddler Development, by Suzy Tompoulos looked at “whether the duration and

content of media exposure at age 6 months were related to later developmental outcomes at 14

months” (Tompoulos, et al., 2010, p. 1105), in order to be able to evaluate the extent of the

outcome due to media exposure scientist looked at the daily diaries of these children. The mother

of the children was asked to provide information “about all electronic media […] to which the

infant had been exposed on the most recent typical day, including name and duration (in

minutes) of each program” (Tompoulos, et al., 2010, p. 1106), information given was used to

calculate starting at age 6 months the child’s cognitive development and language development,

then followed up at 14 months old.

The findings of this study suggested that the more time a toddler spends exposed to

media the lower their scores were when assessed for cognitive and language development. It also

found that “children with 60 minutes of media exposure had approximately one-third SD lower

developmental scores in both domains compared with those who had no exposure” (Tompoulos,

et al., 2010, p. 1108), media has been seen to have adverse effects on children. Technology has

rapidly grown and been implemented into their lives providing them with a different method of

learning. It has brought a new way of thinking and rerouting the brain in order to adapt to later

developments that will be media driven. Since media has provided a method of learning that is
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easily accessible through a screen, it has taken away steps that are crucial for a child’s brain

growth. The reason that children seem to have lower developmental scores is that unlike the JVA

study where technology is combined with demonstration, media exposure has taken away parent-

child interaction limiting “engagement with the child” (Tompoulos, et al., 2010, p. 1109), so

although their attention is guided to one place it is not put into practice after they spend watching

the content that was meant to influence their knowledge.

Since the digital age has drastically been implemented into society, it has changed the

way people interact with each other. The time children spend directly engaging with technology

does not take into account the amount of time that they are engaged with technology even though

they are not necessarily directed to it. Most of the time, “children see their parents constantly

interacting with mobile devices, instead of with people around them” (Vulchanova, et al., 2017,

para. 1), with having these experiences of being around technology for a great amount time, they

are being deprived of interactions that help advance their developments in thought process,

memory/learning, and decision making. Since the way reality is presented and perceived is

looked at through one lens, therefore altering the way children’s acquisition of human skills is

developed. Humans skills like language development, are influenced by the interactions children

have with other people because it helps put into practice conversation and communication which

advances their brain development. A number of studies have shown that advancement “in

language development ought to depend both on the child’s non-verbal (visual cognition) and

verbal cognitive status at point of exposure” (Vulchanova, et al., 2017, para. 10), although media

content can be tailored toward children, if it is not later elaborated by parent-child interaction

than the level of language development is limited to perception and not reality. When a child is

engaging with people through the use of video chats, what is displayed on the monitor is not an
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accurate representation of the environment around them. Since children are limited to a

technology era, they are not aware of what is real and what is not unless they are further

engaging at the moment that they are exposed.

Brain Activity

The constant presence of new technology has separated those born in the computer age

from those who discovered technology as adults. In order to understand how technology is

influencing brain growth, six volunteers were told “to start searching the internet. As they used a

handheld keypad to Google various preselected topics […] the MRI scanned their brains for

areas of high activation, indicated by increases in blood flow” (Carr, 2010, para. 1), as a result

there was an extensive difference in the areas of the prefrontal cortex which is associated with

problem-solving and decision making. The study found that those who were experienced

technology users had different brain activity from those who were new to web surfing, but as the

study had the newbies continue to spend time online it found that “their brain activity had

changed dramatically; it now resembled that of the veteran surfers” (Carr, 2010, para. 3). The

rewiring of the brain is influenced by active practice, when viewing media on television that is

educational for children, only engaging with the content once is not enough to make a sudden

change in the way they think. In order to effectively learn from technology and be able to

understand the way it works, active engagement has to be present as it rapidly and profoundly

alters the brain.

In an article by Nicholas Carr, called The Web Shatters Focus, rewires brains, it focuses

on the cognitive problems that are presented by the use of the web. When surfing the internet

there is a number of sites that are available. For example, when looking through a news article

there are links present that guide toward a different article that may be of interest for the viewer.
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Since technology provides information that a surfer is looking for it also provides information

that may distract from the original content. Research has shown “that people who read linear text

comprehend more, remember more, and learned more than those who read text peppered with

links” (Carr, 2010, para. 8), being exposed to media means that the person using that technology

driven device is pulled toward many different subgroups of information that may not relate to

what they were looking for.

Discussion

In conclusion, there is research that supports the expansion of technology use on brain

growth. Technology will continue to grow and develop faster than we can understand, but

because it is quickly changing the way young brains develop, function, and process information.

There needs to be more research on what neural pathways are activated when technological

abilities are successfully enhancing the way we learn. As many studies have shown, when

presented with a technology driven devices there are extra steps that need to be taken in order to

successfully take the information that was learned and implement it into reality. What is seen on

television shows, is not what actually happens, because those shows are scripts, they are

developed in a way that will help a child understand step by step the plot, but when it comes to

socializing and communicating it does not take into account other characteristics that are present

in real world situations.

The depth of being able to understand comes from three subcategories of the brains

thought process being, working memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. These

subgroups that make up our mind can determine the information we are taking in, how long we

are able to keep it our neural pathways, and also explains how we are to retrieve it and apply it to

later situations. In order for information to successfully enter the mind to help its growth it has to
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go through long-term memory. In order for that to be able to happen there has to be constant

practice of combining technology with demonstration.

References:

McClure, R. E., Chentsova-Dutton, E. Y., Holochwost, J. S., Parrott, G. W., & Barr, R. (2018).
Look at that! Video chat and joint visual attention development among babies and
toddlers. Child Development, 89 (1), 27-36.

Vulchanova, M., Baggio, G., Cangelosi, A., & Smith, L. (2017). Editorial: Language
development in the digital age. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience,11, 1-7.
Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00447/full#B11
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Tomopoulos, S., Dreyer, P. B., Berkule, S., Fierman, H. A., Brockmeyer, C., & Mendelsohn, L.
A. (2010). Infant media exposure and toddler development. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med,
164 (12), 1105-1111. Retrieved from
https://jamanetwork-com.mutex.gmu.edu/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/384030

Zimmerman, J. F., Christakis, A. D., Meltzoff, N. A. (2007). Television and DVD/Video

viewing in children younger than 2 years. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 161 (47), 473-479.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6345045_Television_and_DVDVideo_Viewing
_in_Children_Younger_Than_2_Years

Carr, N. (2010). The web shatters focus, rewires brains. WIRED. Retrieved from
https://www.wired.com/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/all/1.