How Early Digital Experience Shapes Young Brains: A Systematic Review

• In Event: Children, Parents, and Teachers in the Digital Age: Post-Pandemic Challenges and Preventative Solutions

Abstract

Objectives: Digital devices have become a necessity of young children's daily life and are highly integrated into their early learning and development, eventually becoming their childhood experience (Wang et al., 2023). Early digital experience (including screen time and digital use) is believed to impact children’s brain development, functionally and structurally, but this impact has not been systematically reviewed (Li et al., 2021). To fill the gap, this review aims to synthesize the neuroimaging evidence to understand whether and how digital experience shapes young brains structurally and functionally. The findings will have implications for theoretical development, practical improvement, and policymaking.
Methods: This study has employed the PRISMA paradigm rigorously and identified 33 articles from the six full-text databases, including Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, PubMed, and EBSCO Host. The following inclusion criteria were followed in the search: (1) empirical studies; (2) peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles in English; (3) children aged from 0-12 years old; and (4) published during January, 2000-March, 2023.
Results: Three themes have emerged: (1) demographic information of the studies (countries, participants, research designs, neuroimaging technologies); (2) digital experience impacts the function of young children's brains; and (3) digital experience impacts the structure of young children's brains. Most articles reported only one of the two types of impacts (functional or structural). Synthesis of the reviewed evidence indicated that: (1) digital experience was reported to have positive and negative impacts on children’s brains, structurally and functionally; (2) it could cause structural and functional changes in children’s frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, brain connectivity, and brain networks; and the most vulnerable area is the prefrontal cortex and its associated executive function; (3) early digital experience has both positive and negative impacts on children’s brain structure longitudinally.
Conclusions: This review has achieved three major conclusions. First, digital experience does have positive and negative impacts on children's brains, structurally and functionally. Second, digital experience could cause structural and functional changes in children's frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, brain connectivity, and brain networks. And the most vulnerable area is the prefrontal cortex and its associated executive function. Third, early digital experience has positive and negative impacts on children's brain structure longitudinally.
Implications: The findings of this review do have some implications for future directions. First, more studies should examine the 'dose effect' of digital experience. Second, there should be more studies on the longitudinal impact on brain functions. Third, there should be more brain network studies on the impact of digital experience on brain structures and functions, as the existing findings indicated that the impact could be holistic and extensive.

Authors

• Dandan Wu, The Education University of Hong Kong

• Xinyi Dong, Shanghai Normal University

• Danqing Liu, Shanghai Normal University

• Hui Li, The Education University of Hong Kong