Becoming Autistic: How technology is altering the minds of the next generation

Natalie McMaster talks with Associate Professor Michael Nagel from the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Michael has coauthored a book titled Becoming Autistic: How technology is altering the minds of the next generation. Today's discussion focusses on the consequences of developmental changes in young people due to screen use and how they are increasingly being expressed as psychological and behavioural changes that very much resemble known disorders such as autism spectrum disorder.

 More information is available at:

https://www.booktopia.com.au/becoming-autistic-rachael-sharman/book/9781922607140.html 

Transcript

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Natalie McMaster: Hi, today, we're talking to associate Professor Michael Nagel from the University of the Sunshine Coast. Now, Mike has just co-written a book titled, Becoming autistic

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how technology is altering the minds of the next generation.

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Natalie McMaster: So, Michael, can you just have a chat to me about what some of the challenges are linked to screens that you've been looking at for over a decade.

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Michael Nagel: Sure, sure, and thank you for having me

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Michael Nagel: from, you know, more than 10 years now I've I've kind of been alerting parents and teachers like that. These devices that we take for granted, and that we we often don't think about might be having a deleterious impact on the developing brain. Because, whether your listeners no one or not. It's just important to recognize that. You know our brains are fully mature to one of the third decade of life, and there's a lot of things that go on in the first 3, 4, or 5 years of life in the early years.

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Michael Nagel: and also in the 10 years when the brains were structuring itself. And so the question is, we know that neural development is a product of nature and nurture. So the nurturing part of this, like, what what are kids absorbing from the environment. And what impact might that be having on their development brains?

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Michael Nagel: Now, 10 or 15 years ago, when I first started going down this path and looking at the literature and research and and embarking on my own research.

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Michael Nagel: it was very difficult to say anything other than there's a lot of correlational studies because it we can't take a group of kids and create an experimental design to see how much screen use we can innovate them with. And and before it hearts that we'd never get ethical parents for so

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Michael Nagel: The reality is that we start to see that, you know, prior to the turn of the century on most psychometric measures and most measures of well, being young people, we're doing very well in our measures of self esteem, happiness, and life satisfaction

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Michael Nagel: from about 2,000 onwards that start, decline, and precipitously from about 2,007, which coincidentally is when the first smartphones really became available on the maps.

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Michael Nagel: increasingly so over that since that period of time we've seen it marked, and a worrying trend in measure, all kind of measures of stress, and anxiety related disorders, mental health issues, and there seem to be seems to be strong connections to on screen time

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Michael Nagel: and and those challenges most recently, in the last 4 or 5 years,

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Michael Nagel: researchers coming out of Romania, in fact, was a clinical psychologist in Romania, coined the term virtual autism

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whereby he was seen.

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Michael Nagel:  Oh, consumption of, more than, say, 4 h day of of a virtual environment seem to activate behaviors similar to those found in children diagnosed with Asd.

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Michael Nagel: And so he was in his clinical practice with seeing kids who, for all intents and purposes over a period of time, didn't display any measures of Bsd. And suddenly did.

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Michael Nagel: And so

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Michael Nagel: he started looking into it and doing some studies. And this term virtual autism is now become part and parcel with scientific literature where we're seeing children who, prior to having intens and being supposed to intensive screen, is didn't display any measures of Asd, and who suddenly were. And the key question is, what's going on? And it turns out that

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Michael Nagel: intensive screen usage. And by tens of screen users, we're saying, 4 h per day or more seems to be having a deleterious impact on the brain, so much so that recent studies last couple of years, brain imaging studies are showing sort of regions that are associated with

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Michael Nagel:  Asd in in normal brains are are sorry as the in individuals who have autistic spectrum disorder are manifesting in kids who were never diagnosed with this based on screen use. In other words, it seems to be almost a causal connection between screen use and changes to the structure of the brain. It's early days yet. So we can't really say that using screens or extent of it's causing these behaviors. But there is some strong evidence to suggest that that's actually what might be happening. And we don't know

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Michael Nagel: how reversible that might be at this stage.

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Michael Nagel: Yeah, and 4 h doesn't actually seem that long, does it? When we think about how long you know, students are spending? you know, in front of screens

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Michael Nagel: screens. It's just a of how much time is too much time. And and the important message of the book, too.

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Michael Nagel: was not to somehow suggest that having Asd with some kind of deficit. But you know the psychological literature is pretty pronounced.

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Michael Nagel: Asd is diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder. It is a is a challenge for individuals to happen. and it's not saying it's it's not put to putting measure of worth on an individual. But having Asd presents challenges for individuals and for teachers and parents who are working with children who have asp. So what we're trying to save is that parents shouldn't beat themselves up. If there's kids, or some suddenly playing these behaviors, because it turns out interesting enough, this same gentleman, Mary, is Sam, for who coined the turn virtual autism

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Michael Nagel: found that if you just engage in a in a measure of digital detox is what he called it by having kids off devices and in the natural environment. for anywhere. From roughly a week all those symptoms just disappeared.

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Michael Nagel: And so what we, the whole intent of the book, is controversial. The title might be, for some people was to say to parents, Don't beat your cell phone. But what we do know we have decades of research that tell us. What do children need for a normal, healthy development? you know, being with other kids? And as for teenage as well, engaging in social gathers, are we? We have all this literature that tells us this. So

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Michael Nagel: it's about shifting the balance. If your son or daughter is spending too much time in a virtual world. You have to shift that balance of spending more, more time in the real world, and that that was the fundamental message of of the book.

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Natalie McMaster: Fantastic, Mike. I guess when we're also talking about you know, screen time and those types of things.

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Natalie McMaster: Do you have an opinion about screen time in schools, and, you know, teaches them asking students to, you know, be on screens to do homework and that sort of stuff. Part of yes, part of the difficulty with spending time on schools is actually, what are the students doing on those screens during screen time? Because it's very hard to manage. So most of the evidence that I've seen. And again this will come. My comment is very controversial. Is that

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Michael Nagel: There doesn't seem to be any real substantive evidence saying that it's not need to be on screens in primary school whatsoever.

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Michael Nagel: and that in high school it probably is only to do research activities. In other words, there isn't a lot of evidence suggest that being on screens actually contributes to any substantive academic outcomes. In fact, the Oecd, the same organization that you know. Does the Pisa worldwide studies every 2 to 3 years, looking at scientific math and and English aptitude with 15 year olds

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Michael Nagel: published a report in 2,015 that anyone can go on the Oecd and get it. I think it's called School Technology, or Computers and schools for the director of the Oecd in 2,015 set. For all intents and purposes, technology was not a a very good mechanism for advancing educational outcomes and and questions. It's efficacy. Now, that's the educational side. From a mental health standpoint. A lot of the evidence I've looked at basically says that

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Michael Nagel: children 13 and under should not have access to a smartphone. It's not necessary. beyond 13. It should be limited to the opportunities for communication, which is either, you know, being able to make phone calls text or GPS, because a lot of parents want their children to have phones for safety concerns. Right? That's just the problem, not because kids are actually quite safe. And so the evidence around phone use suggests that

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Michael Nagel: it. It's really questionable whether or not a a one or 2 year old sort of have access to it to a smartphone because it

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Michael Nagel: on base value. What the research I would suggest that it's just, it's simply not necessary. And it just. It's exacerbated in schools when schools are having kids on devices all the time.

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Natalie McMaster: Fantastic, Mark, were there any other sort of main developments that you have put out in the book at all that you'd like to share.

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Michael Nagel: that it's it's easy to consider, I suppose challenges are on screen time and early development, you know, because we we know kids like to run on the plane, something that that's all very healthy. We got to.

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Michael Nagel: But one of the interesting things coming out of the research literature, too, is that when in the teenagers, when when kids are going through puberty and the brains really restructure yourself one of the downsides of too much of time on screen, and the evidence is suggesting that

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Michael Nagel: it impacts upon an advanced development of theory of mind, or the capacity to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

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whereby we're seeing that

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Michael Nagel: younger and younger generations are actually very poor at taking another person's perspective. Now we theorize in the book that what that has led is actually, it's one of the reasons why we have such difficulty in coming to shared understanding of ideas. But you get with the younger generation and cancel culture, because if you can't put yourself in someone else's shoes.

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Michael Nagel: Then how do you actually consider their perspective? And Dr. Richard Sharman, my co-oper in the book was actually telling me the other day because we're looking at doing a second volume some really interesting research that's coming out of the Us. We're talking to 1617 year old kids and giving them sort of moral dilemmas, and have done a history. And they literally can't think about how someone else might feel.

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Michael Nagel: They they literally can't do it, even when giving queues and responses, you know. And and so that is a real worrying trend. If if it is indeed the the reality that screens are actually impairing or unpacking upon our capacity, taking someone else's perspective that doesn't build well for society when we, when we really need to get along with one another.

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Natalie McMaster: Hmm, definitely. Oh, there's some great topics there that that you brought up, Mike. Thanks very much for taking the time out to discuss it with me today it was great.