The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background

Digital media defines modern childhood, but its cognitive effects are unclear and hotly debated. We estimated the impact of different types of screen time (watching, socializing, or gaming) on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background. We analyzed 9855 children from the ABCD dataset with measures of intelligence at baseline (ages 9-10) and after two years. At baseline, time watching and socializing were negatively correlated with intelligence, while gaming had no correlation. After two years, gaming positively impacted intelligence, but socializing had no effect. This is consistent with cognitive benefits documented in experimental studies on video gaming. Unexpectedly, watching videos also benefited intelligence, contrary to prior research on the effect of watching TV. Broadly, our results are in line with research on the malleability of cognitive abilities from environmental factors, such as cognitive training and the Flynn effect.

An Interlude on Shots and Cultural Change

Popular culture has promoted a myth about why shot durations in movies have grown shorter during the past 50 years. The myth states that this is due to culturally shortened attention spans. There is no evidence for this urban legend. What there is strong evidence for, however, is people’s increased ability to extract visual information from displays of all kinds. IQs have increased throughout the world for at least a century, and the greatest increases have occurred for visual thinking and reasoning. This is called the Flynn effect. If people can discern images faster, filmmakers should have shortened shots. Moreover, the cultural adaptation to watching edited video invokes a concept from Michael Baxandall—the period eye. Imported to movies, viewers today are better able to see and discern visual information compared with viewers of a previous era. Examples are discussed from computer graphics.

Shots and Sound

This chapter categorizes all shots in two dozen movies and places them into 15 categories for the purpose of exploring the reasons for the shortened shot durations from the 1950s to the present day. Evidence shows that all classes of shots have become briefer, as might be predicted from the Flynn effect. This suggests that people, as viewers, have indeed gotten faster at extracting visual information. Similarly, it is also clear that contemporary filmmakers rely on viewers’ memory more than in the past. This is demonstrated by shortening shot durations and tightening shot scales when the movie returns to a given locale, a given character, or a given time frame. The chapter also examines the more recent impact of the long take. In addition, it explores the efficacies of sound, particularly music, as it covers the shots of movies. These include enhancing continuity, controlling and flavoring mood, foreshadowing action, and reinforcing memories.

SEGUIN FORM BOARD TEST: A PROPOSAL FOR APPROPRIATE NORMS

Seguin Form Board Test (SFB) is one of the popular tests of intelligence for children in the Indian subcontinent. It is a much sought-after test due to its simplicity, ease of administration and takes less than 10 minutes to arrive at an IQ score. Further, it elicits interest in children, is easy to score and can be administered to even shy, speech impaired, autistic spectrum and/or attention decit and hyperactive children. There are standard norms and to keep up with the Flynn effect, researchers are conducting studies to update normative data to keep up with the times. However, all the available norms in India with respect to SFB, follow incorrect practices, such as, using SFB for children older than 10 years; inappropriate processes, such as, using only the mean value and ignoring standard deviation; and erroneous way of converting interval scale score to ordinal scale score to arrive at the ratio IQ method. These errors have been existing for decades, despite the possibility of having better and appropriate norms that matches the deviation IQ. This article attempts to highlight the pitfalls of adopting the existing norms with appropriate examples and gures. Further, the article proposes a better and more appropriate norms to arrive at an IQ.

The Flinn Effect in Russia: Impact of Settlements’ Size

The rise in the intelligence tests scores across the generations, known as the Flynn effect, is widely studied in various countries due to critical role of intelligence as the most important component of human capital. Several explanations for the Flynn effect have been proposed, none of which have a predominant status. At least partly it can be explained by deficiency of studies devoted to the influence of various moderators on the speed and trajectory of the intelligence scores gain. This study presents the results of an analysis of the impact on the Flynn effect of such a poorly studied factor as the settlements’ size of a populated point. Intelligence scores (n = 267116) obtained during large-scale online testing of men aged 18—40 years between 2012 and 2019 were distributed among seven categories of populated points determined by their population size. Significant differences were revealed both in the level of IQ scores and in the rate of its growth, depend- ing on the respondents belonging to these categories. Differences in the level of intelligence of residents of megalopolises and small towns are 7 IQ-points on average, and the dynamics of growth in intelligence scores in the period 1983—2000 differs in some of the categories by more than 2 times. The smallest trend for this period was in cities with a population of 100 to 249.9 thousand people. Possible explanations for the differences are suggested. In particular, the selective migration of the most educated and intellectual part of their population to large cities and capitals may be a possible mechanism for inhibiting the Flynn effect in settlements with a smaller population.