The social development in childhood It is one of the aspects that most worries parents today. The use of mobile devices for the education and entertainment of children is more and more frequent, arousing suspicions of a possible negative impact on social skills due to children's exposure to the screen.
However, a new study published in the American Journal of Sociology disproves these detrimental effects, so it seems elementary school students still have normal social skills despite smartphones.
To date, a large number of researchers and parents were convinced of the deterioration in social skills of this new generation due to technology. Many postgraduate degrees in Psychology included the possible negative effects of spending more time on the screen instead of socializing with other children. However, this new research has found little evidence of a negative impact on elementary school students..
At the end of the study, the researchers concluded that the children exhibited social skills similar to those of other generations. In fact, the most surprising result showed a higher rating of the 2010 generation in terms of self-control and interpersonal skills. To do this, their character control and their friendship relationships with other young people were evaluated, even analyzing their ability to get along with those who were different..
When verifying that, in fact, there was no solid evidence that would allow affirming this deterioration in the social skills of elementary school children, Douglas Downey, professor of sociology at Ohio State University, and Benjamin Gibbs, associate professor of sociology at the Brigham Young University, decided to conduct this research. To do this, the team of experts used data from a longitudinal study led by the National Center for Educational Statistics.
The idea came from a conversation between Downey and his son, where the former reproached him for the behavior of most young people, who prefers to spend time using these devices instead of socializing in person with other children who are in the same place..
The study included two cohorts of students. The first, with 19,000 children, corresponded to the generation of students that began in preschool education in 1998, while the second included a total of 13,400 young people who began in 2010.
The researchers collected the parents' grades on three different occasions: at the beginning and end of preschool education, and at the end of primary school. Likewise, six evaluations of teachers up to the fifth year of primary school were also included..
As a result, the students belonging to the 2010 cohort did not show a deterioration in your social skills compared to 1998. On the contrary, self-control and interpersonal skills increased their score in this last generation, obtaining a completely different result from that expected by the researchers.
The only substantial difference is related to online games. In the case of these children, who spent much of their time in this type of entertainment, their social skills were slightly lower than in the others.
"Overall, we found very little evidence that screen time impaired social skills for most children.", Downey explained in a press release..
One of the limitations of the study is that the team focused on analyzing only face-to-face skills. Therefore, lead researcher Douglas Downey suggests that future studies should also consider digital skills, that will allow them to communicate via email and on different social networks.
Similarly, one of the main criticisms of the exposure of minors to these devices is that it leads to less direct socialization. Although this statement could make sense, since the less time spent on socialization the opportunities to develop social skills would be ruled out, the reality offered by this research reveals a completely different picture.
However, it is essential that parents control this screen exposure, allowing minors to intersperse these activities with face-to-face socialization with other children. For this reason, it is essential to publish new studies that delve into these findings, in order to definitively verify the presence of possible negative effects..
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