Singing to infants boosts their mood
Singing to infants can significantly uplift their moods, says a recent study by Yale University (USA) and published in Child Development (May).
Yale researchers surveyed 110 parents and 0-4-month-old infants. They randomly divided parents into two groups, encouraging one group to sing to their infants more frequently. Over the course of four weeks, these parents were asked to answer questions related to their infant’s mood, fussiness, time spent soothing, their own mood, and the frequency of musical renditions.
“We don’t always need to focus on expensive, complicated interventions when there are others that are just as effective and easy to adopt. When you ask parents to sing more and provide them with basic tools to help them in that journey, it’s something that comes very naturally to them,” says Lidya Yurdum, a Ph D student at the University of Amsterdam, affiliated with the Yale Child Study Center, and the study’s first co-author.
Maternal infancy warmth translates into teens social safety
Maternal warmth and affection in early childhood not only benefits children by way of life-long physical and mental health, but also generates perception of social safety, according to a new UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Health research study published in JAMA Psychiatry (June).
Researchers examined data of over 8,500 children from a Millennium Cohort Study in the UK. Independent evaluators visited the children’s homes at age three and assessed their mothers’ warmth (praise, positive voice tone) and harshness (physically restraining or physical force). At age 14, social safety questions such as “Do I have family and friends who help me feel safe, secure and happy?” were posed. Children also reported their overall physical health,and psychological distress at age 17.
“These are the first results we know of showing that maternal warmth can manifest by way of positive health and well-being of children in their teenage years. This is a powerful message, because although early-life circumstances are not always easy to change, we can help youth view parents and their own future in more positive light,” says Dr. George Slavich, senior author of the study and Director of the Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research at UCLA.
Excessive screen time prompts child behavioural issues
Excessive digital screen viewing places children at a higher risk of developing socio-emotional and behavioural problems, says a study published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin.
Conducted by Australian researchers, the study reviewed and meta-analyzed 117 studies, encompassing data from over 292,000 children worldwide. The study revealed that children who excessively engaged with electronic devices (TV, tablet, computer, gaming consoles), are more likely to develop socio-emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, aggression and hyperactivity.
“This study highlights the need for a nuanced approach to managing children’s screen time. By understanding the bidirectional relationship between screen time and socio-emotional problems, parents, educators, and policymakers can better support children’s healthy development in an increasingly digital world,” says lead author Roberta Vasconcellos, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales.
Chat GPT may diminish critical thinking abilities
A new study by researchers at the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found that using ChatGPT adversely impacts critical thinking abilities, especially of adolescents.
The study divided 54 participant 18-39 year-olds from the Boston area into three groups and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used EEG to record writers’ brain activity and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels”. Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users became lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.
“Educating people on how we use these tools and promoting the fact that our brain needs to develop in a more analog way, is absolutely critical. We need to have active legislation in sync and more importantly, be testing these tools thoroughly before rolling them out,” says Nataliya Kosmyna, a full-time research scientist at MIT Media Lab and lead author.