Increased Screen Time on Mental Health or Education During Quarantine

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Effects of Increased Screen Time on Mental Health or Education During Quarantine
There lacks a general definition of screen time, and most studies and groups that have investigated the subject matter tend to come up with their own definitions. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) defines screen time as the interval spent on a screen except when interacting with familiar adults CITATION Pap20 \l 1033 (Pappas). Because of the lockdown measures, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the number of hours children spend on digital devices. The increased use of electronic devices has raised concerns about prolonged screen time's psychological and academic impacts on children. This paper will review several online sources on the subject matter using critical thinking terms from Judith Boss' book THiNK. It theorizes that not all screen time has an adverse impact on mental health or studies and advises parents to help children establish a balance between using digital devices and doing other activities. Screen time is neither good nor bad but requires a balance with other non-screen activities such as studies, play, social interaction, and sleep.
The article "Electronic Device Use in The Time of COVID-19" by Krithika Venkatasubramanian and Aparna Ramasubramanian investigates screen time's effect on the eye. Ethos and logos are the two primary rhetorical devices used in the articles. The two authors establish their credibility by their credentials. Venkatasubramanian is a pediatric ophthalmologist and the medical director of the Phoenix Children's retinoblastoma program, and Ramasubramanian is her research assistant. They also use logos as a rhetorical device to convince the audience of their arguments using facts and figures. When highlighting the temporary and permanent afflictions associated with excessive screen time, they accompany their arguments with previous studies and their findings. For instance, when showing the relation between screen time and Asthenopia, they cite one study that investigated the ophthalmological impacts of electronic device use on 576 school-age children between the ages of 11 and 17. This study revealed 18 percent of the children reported eyestrain after prolonged use of digital devices CITATION Ven20 \l 1033 (Venkatasubramanian and Ramasubramanian). Asthenopia, also known as computer vision syndrome, is caused by accommodative insufficiency, improper lighting, accommodative insufficiency, or an imbalance in the extraocular muscles. Most children fail to observe the correct reading distance during screen time, thus the eye strain.
The use of logos as a rhetorical device is evident throughout the paper as the authors show the various visual-related problems linked to electronic device use. However, the authors fail to mention the research designs or assumptions used in the studies they quote, or even other studies that conflict with their arguments. It isn't easy to verify the integrity of the studies mentioned in the paper as support sources. The article is guilty of several fallacies (hasty generalization and cherry-picking) because it generalizes all excessive screen time leading to ophthalmological complications and only focuses on those studies that hold this posit...