Warnings are coming in about a new problem that comes from overuse of electronic devices.
Can't Remember Your Own Phone Number? You Might Have Digital Dementia.
You could be stunting your development or speeding your demise by spending too many hours a day on that device.
The Telegraph (UK) notes that South Korean doctor Byun Gi-won told a newspaper that “over-use of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the brain...Heavy users are likely to develop the left side of their brains, leaving the right side untapped or underdeveloped.”
The right side of the brain is responsible for concentration. Failure in development of that side of the brain could lead to early dementia in 15 percent of heavy-users of smartphones, according to The Telegraph. Overuse of the devices could also lead to emotional underdevelopment, with children feeling the affects of it more because of their still-developing brains.
South Koreas one of the most digitally connected nations in the world and the problem of internet addiction among both adults and children was recognised as far back as the late 1990s.
That is now developing into the early onset of digital dementia – a term coined in South Korea – meaning a deterioration in cognitive abilities that is more commonly seen in people who have suffered a head injury or psychiatric illness.
"Over-use of smartphones and game devices hampers the balanced development of the brain," Byun Gi-won, a doctor at the Balance Brain Centre in Seoul, told the JoongAng Daily newspaper.