Sounds the Alarm on Cell Phones and the Developing Brain

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, Sunday morning, we have another good friend of mine, Dr. Mason Primzler, and we were talking over the last few days about cell phones hurting our children. Well, Dr. Primzler, tell me what’s going on. They said it has serious side effects on children using cell phones.

0:20 Speaker 2 Good morning, John, on this beautiful Sunday. Yes, every ping, like a notification, is competing for one of the most powerful systems in the human brain. And children, adolescents, their brains are developing, so it’s even more important. The circuitry that controls rewards and attention and learning, that’s what this is affecting. and it affects the neurotransmitters, which the main

0:47 one is dopamine. So every time an adolescent, a teenager, a child, even an adult actually, goes to reach for their phone, they’re looking for a reward. They’re waiting to see something, whether something pops up on Instagram, whether something pops up on one of these social media apps, and it becomes addicting. So you don’t get the same toxic

1:10 effects like you would changes with cocaine, a drug, but you do get these toxic effects on the circuitry where kids and adolescents, and I’d say adults, get addicted, and the brain circuits can change also. It all goes back to psychology, like with B.F. Skinner, where he did the reward studies, and it’s all the dopamine system, which is

1:38 a neurotransmitter produced by the brain Just to make it simple so everyone could understand it, think of just dopamine as a reward chemical in our brain. When a ping goes off on the phone or it’s in our pocket, if it’s on vibrating mode, the kids in school, everywhere they reach for it because they think they’re going to

2:02 find something on Instagram or a text message. The compulsion is coming from the brain chemistry.

2:11 Speaker 1 The other thing, Doctor, is Wi-Fi transmitters, receivers in your bedroom, I’ve been told that it has an adverse effect on your brain, too. Is it that sensitive?

2:26 Speaker 2 I agree. Now, when you say it like that, I think that cell phones, I still think the referees haven’t really called it out yet where maybe we can even get brain tumors from this. Now, in regards to the Wi-Fi, if that’s what you’re talking about, in regards that it has harmful effects to cause pathology, like tumors or anything

2:52 like that, if that’s what you mean, I do think there’s a possibility for that stuff. I do. Strongly, actually.

2:59 Speaker 1 Understood. Would you like to talk to us on a Sunday morning? We’re talking about the danger of iPhones to our children. number one, especially younger children in their teenage years. We’re talking about having the Wi-Fi transmitter in your bedroom.

3:17 Anything else in that category?

3:19 Speaker 2 No, you’re right. Right in the bedroom where you’re sleeping and you’re spending a lot of time where children are studying if they’re not at the library or adolescents. It’s a very good point you brought up, like what you did with the medical aid. That’s right, because you have that all in that room, that electrical circuitry going around.

3:41 And that’s a bad thing. One thing I was going to bring up, there was a particularly useful study done at UCLA Medical School. school, the Reagan Center. And they used MRI, but MRI, they used what’s called functional MRI that doesn’t just show the anatomy of the brain, but shows how the brain, the physiology is working. And what

4:06 they showed was that teenagers who viewed Instagram style photos, so we’re just going to use one app, not to call one app out, but just one app. It works on others too. Instagram style photos with many likes. So some people get likes. It gives them a high. And it showed that there was greater activation on these functional

4:29 MRIs in the children’s brains once they got a like on Instagram. And it showed how it actually affects the brain’s reward circuitry. So we’re not just talking out of thin air. We do have the imaging to back us.

4:44 Speaker 1 Up on this. Thank you so much, Dr. Mason Pimsleur. Let’s continue to talk and try to help our friends live longer.

4:56 Speaker 2 Yes, and thank you for getting this out for free on AM radio. It’s appreciated. God bless. God bless.