Children are staring at screens for 2,000 hours a year Expert
says browsing habits could lead to ‘temporary dementia’ By Sadie
Whitelocks Last updated at 2:24 PM on 14th October 2011
Children’s brains could be left damaged and they could suffer
temporary ‘dementia’ by playing computer games, a leading
scientist has warned. Eminent neurologist Baroness Susan
Greenfield said yesterday that spending time online gaming and
browsing internet sites such as Facebook could pose problems for
millions of youngsters. She told attendees at a Dorset
conference that an unhealthy addiction to technology could
disable connections in the brain, literally ‘blowing the mind.’
With children spending around 2,000 hours a year staring at
computer screens the health effects have been widely debated.
Baroness Greenfield – a former director at the Royal
Institution, the oldest independent research body in the world –
took the opportunity to outline the dangers of online gaming and
browsing at the opening of a £2.5million science cent