As a Gen Z, I’ve grown up with a mother who describes her childhood as adventurous, playing in the local fields behind her home in Scotland, where she’d create made-up games with the other children from the area.

When I have children, I will tell them about my obsession with Bratz dolls and how I would give them all unique personalities and take them everywhere with me.

In 20 years, how will Gen Alpha describe their childhood to their children? Playing the latest games on their iPads? Or how they spent hours competing against online friends in video games?

Over the past few decades, technology has soared, and handheld devices now play an integral part in our everyday lives. Research by Ofcom reports many children as young as 5 have their own smartphone, with 24% of 5-to-7-year-olds in the UK owning the device. So how young is too young to have unlimited access to the internet and constant screen time?

According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, the current guidelines for screen time usage in Australia is no screen time for children under the age of 2, a maximum of one hour per day for children aged 2-5 and no more than two hours per day for ages 5-17. However, findings have shown majority of Australian children are exceeding the recommended screen time, which poses risks to their development and wellbeing.

High amounts of screen time in children have been linked to eye developmental issues, such as eye fatigue, dry and irritated eyes, loss of focus flexibility, sleep deprivation and nearsightedness.

Experts say ‘nearsightedness’, relating to the inability to see clear objects from a far distance, is of most concern as the characteristics can be long term, resulting in spectacle usage, even vision loss. Pediatric optometrist, Ayesha Malik, says play time outside is not only important for a child’s health but also for their eyes.

“Exposure to natural daylight is critical to developing eyes,” she says.

Researchers believe natural UV light is essential for healthy eye development, and lack of, such as spending more time indoors doing close-up tasks, such as engaging in technological activities, can result in developing the vision deficit.

It’s estimated 5 per cent of 3 to 5-year-olds will develop nearsightedness, while 9 per cent of school-aged children and 30 per cent of adolescents will, according to statistics from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Although there is no evidence to support technology use being the cause of most nearsightedness cases, recent studies have displayed a dramatic increase in rates of the eye problem over the last three decades, suggesting otherwise.

According to the International Myopia Institute, 22.9 per cent of the global population in the year 2000 were affected by nearsightedness; that percentage rose by 5.6 per cent by 2010 and in 2020, 33.9 per cent of people had the vision loss. However, these figures only count the population who have access to eye testing. Researchers believe the increase of technology usage within that timeline could be correlated. 

Not only does screen time and technology use affect a child’s physical development, many experts believe it can also increase the risk of mental health issues.

One of these experts is American social psychologist and author, Jonathon Haidt, who’s thoroughly researched the impacts technology and phone usage have on a child’s development, writing several articles and The Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness which is a book exploring the fundamental ways a ‘phone-based childhood’ interferes with a healthy adolescent development. Haidt believes this rewiring is due to traditional ‘play-based childhoods’ shifting into what he terms the ‘phone-based childhood’, via the introduction of phones, social media, and high-speed internet to children from 2010-2015.

He believes phone usage among children contributes to sleep and social deprivation, cognitive fragmentation, and addiction, which poses a risk of developing mental illnesses, alienation, and educatory performance declines.

Haidt has analysed several studies and reports on these risks and points out the trend of results changing dramatically in the later years. One of these studies by the American Time Use Survey measured social isolation from 2003 to 2020 with findings presenting a significant spike in data after 2018. In 2003, the average time people were spending alone per day was 285 minutes, and by 2019, that number increased to 309. However, in 2020, the average time spent alone had jumped dramatically to 333 minutes per day. The increase of social isolation over the course of 16 years from 2003 to 2019 was repeated over the course of just one year from 2019, to 2020.

The same study also measured social engagement with friends over the same time-period and experienced a significant drop in data after 2018 as well. In 2003, the average time spent socially with friends was 60 minutes per day and decreased to 34 minutes by 2019. By 2020, the average minutes of time spent socially with friends per day decreased to 20 minutes, indicating a clear drop in data from 2019 to 2020.

Haidt believes the increase of alienation is correlated with the increase of technology usage and says Gen Z began to socially distance themselves the day they received a mobile.

“The day we gave them a smart phone, it takes over their lives and sits in front of their face for the rest of their lives,” he says.

“They stop spending time with other kids.”

Haidt also looks at many studies measuring children’s mental health over the years, including one conducted by the American College Health Association, which measured the percentage of U.S. undergraduates diagnosed with a mental illness, between 2008 and 2018. After 2010, levels of anxiety increased by 134 per cent, while depression increased by 106 per cent. The data also displayed a heavy increase with undergraduates diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar disorder, anorexia, schizophrenia and substance abuse or addiction.

Other data analysed by Haidt, and sourced from CDC fatal injury, looked at the rate of suicides amongst 10-14 year olds in the U.S. between 2004 and 2020. The findings display a shocking 134 per cent increase for girls and a 109 per cent increase for boys, since 2010.

“Millennials didn’t get any more mentally ill when they got older, Gen Z’s did,” Haidt says.

“Compared to what it was in 2010, it’s a different planet.”

Registered Psychologist, Kadi Turner, says it’s important to consider if a child’s high screen time usage is due to their mental health issues rather than being the cause of it.

“There are some features of ASD and ADHD that make kids more predisposed to spending more time on their screen than other kids who don’t have a developmental issue, so whether or not screen time and technology use would be causing those issues isn’t necessarily something that research has validated.”

She says however, high levels of screen time and technology use may exacerbate some of those mental health symptoms. 

Haidt believes the solution to this developmental decline is for collective action among parents, not allowing their children under the age of 16 to own a smartphone or have a social media account, and for schools to impliment a no-phone policy. He says these changes will give children more independence, free-play, and responsibility in the real world, which he claims is essential for their development.

Turner says banning technology use among children isn’t the answer as smart devices can be beneficial in terms of teaching a child new skills and normalising the digital age. She believes the solution is to instead, learn how to manage your child’s screen-time.

“I think while being aware that technology is a part of our environment, we need to be mindful on how much time is being spent on screens and being mindful not to introduce screens to children early on,” she says.

“We need to make sure they’re still spending lots of time with face-to-face interactions, playing and exploring their environment.”

Gen Z mother and early educator, Heidi Meredith says she has noticed an increase in technology use among children and will even have kids arrive at the early learning centre using their smart devices.

“We’ve had kids come in with iPads and their parents will tell us that their child was emotional on the way to day care, so that’s how they’ve gotten them to calm down.”

She says she can empathize with parents and believes the pressure of a busy environment often contributes to why people turn to giving their children technology.

“If their child is in a pram and they’re not settling, giving them a phone or an iPad takes the stress off the child as well as the mother, because the last thing a parent wants to be seen as, is someone who can’t control their child.”

“Maybe it is a lack of discipline but sometimes there’s so many single parents and they could be struggling, and so technology is their friend.”

Meredith does, however, agree with a play-based childhood and says although technology is acceptable when having moments of down-time, it can also take away from what being a child is all about.

“When I watch kids these days, I feel like they’re missing out on a childhood I had, which is being outdoors and having a hobby to spend so much of your time on and I feel like technology takes away a child’s ability to explore what they actually enjoy.”

So, in 20 years’ time, when Gen Alpha starts to become parents, will they wish they had more adventurous and social tales to tell? Or did the technology brainwash them into believing their phone-based childhood was best? It’s a question we will have to wait 20 years to find out while we ponder: what type of childhood do I want for my future generations?