Babies learn to talk by hearing parents talk. More talking leads to more learning. More phone time means less talking. Less talking likely leads to less learning. While I am not known for conciseness (I love filling in all the details when explaining health conditions to patients), these 4 short sentences sum up both common sense and a recent study by researchers in Texas. Moms who spend more time on their phones are talking a lot less to their newborn.
Parents want the best for their children. Parents also look around today and wonder what happened to their children. They will spend thousands of dollars and countless hours trying to boost their children’s IQ, their test scores, their athletic prowess, and more over a lifetime. Parents naturally want their children to thrive in life in every way possible.
Sometimes, success comes in the little things of life, the daily moments. In this study, not only did mom’s talk to their babies 16% less while on their phones, their short interval phone usages resulted in an even more profound impact. During times that moms were using their phones for 1 to 2 minutes interactions, their spoken words to their babies were 26% less than when they were off their phones.
These findings seem common sense at first glance, but we should always confirm how such data was gathered before making life changes. Sometimes, data can be skewed intentionally or unintentionally. In this case, the data is probably pretty good. By strapping small audio recorders onto babies for a week and comparing the recordings with cell phone usage records, they produced these findings. They were surprised to find that the moms spent an average of 4.4 hours on their phones during the 12-hour recording periods each day.
While some of these situations could be moms working from home who cannot turn off their phones completely, parents should consider these findings with a self-examination of their phone usage. We can see how smartphones have impacted teens as we watch them sit together, heads bowing down to their phone idols, busily typing away rather than talking to the friend 2 feet in front of their faces. We should then look in the mirror ourselves and realize that we are interfering with the interactions we have with even our babies.
Helping others live healthier, more abundant lives includes nurturing the relationships within families which can start the next generation off with better communication skills. No one will win an award for having spent the most time on a smartphone at the end of their life, but parents would all be pleased with having raised children successful not only in their careers, but successful in their relationships, both of which require good language and communication skills.
Original Article:
Mikhelson, M., Luong, A., Etz, A., Micheletti, M., Khante, P., & de Barbaro, K. (2024). Mothers speak less to infants during detected real-world phone use. Child Development, 00, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14125
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
