(photo from flickr.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Saying that early exposure of children to digital media may have several effects in their behavior, developmental behavioral pediatricians here called for parents to regulate the use of such devices, especially those younger than three years old.
In a press conference Monday, Dr. Merlyn Flavier, consultant of the Department of Pediatrics of the Southern Philippines Medical Center urged the parents to strongly regulate the early exposure of any digital media to children.
“For us doctors, we strongly advocate regulating early exposure to any digital media. Whether it’s in television, computer, laptops or other gadgets, for kids zero to two years old,” she said.
Such regulation, Flavier added, is extended to three years old, noting that “there are implications for children having developmental problems.”
“Having early exposure to digital media, and of course behavioral concerns coming out when they are growing. We always see children walking around, not playing with each other and just playing by themselves with the gadget, and that entails an influence on their overall development especially on their social skills” Flavier added.
Flavier advised parents to spend time for their children, saying they need to grow in a “balanced” development.
For his part Dr. Michael Manalaysay, chairman of the Pediatrics Department of the Southern Philippines Medical Center pointed out that early exposure to digital media could also lead to physical ailments as well.
“This is more of a social and behavioral problem that we are facing. If you noticed, many of the old diseases are slowly fading, and we are confronted with social behavioral problems that also result into some other diseases because of this,” Manalaysay said.
“We do have computer migraine headache, eye problems, just because of too much exposure to the internet,” Manalaysay added.
A forum titled “Unraveling the Mysteries of Generation Z: A Developmental and Adolescent Medicine Convention” will be held at SMX Convention Center at SM Lanang here on Oct. 28-29.
“These are a very important segment of our upcoming generation because they are the techie types, more ‘techie’ than the millennials. They have a problem if they are offline. They do have a lot of problems at the very beginning of their generation, that’s why we start from the pre-adolescent now to the adolescent period” Manalaysay said, explaining the forum.
Topics to be discussed in the forum include “Teens, Social Media and Technology,” “Adolescent Sexuality,” “The Differently-abled Learner: Current Trends and issues in the SPED system,” among others. (davaotoday.com)
