That’s today’s average – 9 hours of time spent connected to technology every day. Teens and older children are spending the same amount of time online as their parents spend at work . . . and sometimes much more. For a young brain that is not fully developed, this amount of activity will undoubtedly have an impact and as some researchers are describing it – young brains are being rewired by the Internet.

The thing is, no one can say for sure what the impact will be. Will they have decreased social skills? Will they be less empathetic? Will their analytical skills be effected? Of course we know that it is not all bad, but the frightening thing is that we just don’t know.

So what do we know? Well one important fact is that a young brain develops in accordance to what it is exposed to. It goes through a “pruning” stage. The more it is exposed to a particular activity, the more the brain develops in that direction. 60% of the synaptic connections between the brain cells get pruned away by the time a person finishes adolescence so, for example, a child who is not exposed to playing with his peers, would not naturally develop basic socializing skills and would be at high risk for a range of psychological disorders.

The manner in which a young person spends his time has a profound effect on how his brain will be shaped. The nagging question is then, what will be the effect on a generation that grows up with far less human contact than previous generations? This could have devastating consequences. What we surely must come to grips with today, is how to prevent Internet overuse and to keep online activity within a healthy proportion of our daily activity.