September Founder’s Corner: The Developing Mind in a Digital Age

Posted: September 12, 2025

By Dr. Linnea Terranova

Not long ago, I sat in a restaurant and noticed a table of pre-teens gathered together. Their food was on the way, but instead of talking or laughing, every one of them bent silently over a phone. Their fingers scrolled in unison, eyes flickering with the shifting glow of the screens. It was as if the devices were the real dinner companions, while the humans sat quietly in parallel. I found myself wondering what this scene says about how the developing brain is learning to inhabit the world.

Neurologist and scholar Maryanne Wolf (2007, 2018) has written eloquently about the reading brain, reminding us that literacy is not innate. The human brain repurposes its circuits for deep reading, an achievement that allows us to analyze, infer, and empathize. But like muscles that atrophy without use, these capacities require practice. The digital world, by contrast, trains us to skim, swipe, and seek novelty. What is gained in speed and agility may come at the expense of patience, focus, and reflective thought.

Researchers have even coined the term “Twitter brain” to describe what happens when short-form, novelty-rich feeds become our default. Attention fragments, reward systems are tuned to constant stimulation, and returning to a long, complex book can feel like swimming upstream. The developing mind is especially susceptible because habits of attention are still being laid down.

A series of meta-analyses has shown that comprehension tends to be lower when reading on screens, particularly for complex material, while readers simultaneously feel more confident in their grasp of the content than their performance warrants (Clinton, 2019; Delgado et al., 2018; Lauterman & Ackerman, 2014). For children and adolescents, whose neural networks are still pruning and strengthening, these patterns carry weight. Each scroll or notification is more than a passing distraction; it is a lesson in what attention looks like and how long it should last.

This context intersects with another cultural shift: the rise in ADHD diagnoses. Some of this increase reflects better awareness and access to screening, and many children are truly neurodivergent and benefit from this recognition (Hinshaw & Scheffler, 2014). At the same time, the broader environment matters. Studies suggest that heavy digital multitasking is associated with greater ADHD-like symptoms, even among children without the disorder (Baumgartner et al., 2014). Attention itself is being reshaped. The risk is that fragmented focus becomes normalized, and what once would have been seen as distraction now becomes the new baseline. It is no wonder that sitting quietly, without a device in hand, feels so unnatural to many young people – and to adults as well.

I sometimes think about what is being lost in the disappearance of downtime. As a child, I spent long afternoons with a “build-a-burger” play-dough set. I remember the salty smell of the clay on my fingers, the slow rolling of buns and patties, the careful layering of lettuce and cheese. I can still feel the warm fall breeze on the picnic table in my backyard, hear the screech of bike tires and the laughter of neighborhood kids, see the cat dozing in the sun beside me. I was utterly absorbed in my task, yet deeply attuned to the world around me. That space – quiet, creative, lightly attended – was profoundly developmental. Neuroscience now tells us that the brain’s default mode network, which activates during rest and daydreaming, is crucial for memory consolidation and imagination (Immordino-Yang et al., 2012). Without boredom and silence, the mind loses practice in these essential skills.

Today, however, moments of boredom are filled before they begin – and the adolescent brain is at risk. Phones offer instant relief, but at the cost of reflection and creativity. The compulsive pull to check devices mirrors a kind of cultural OCD loop: a rising urge, a quick check, a brief release, and then the cycle begins again (Montag & Reuter, 2017). For children, this pattern is not a quirk of habit; it is the texture of their developing neural landscape. As a psychologist aware of the real impact I’m seeing with our teens, who more and more appear to lack empathy and free creative thinking, I’m concerned. What is truly happening to our children’s developing minds in the digital era will take decades to track through longitudinal studies…time I’m not sure we should be gambling with.

However, seeing technology from a black and white perspective is unnecessary. Wolf (2018) does not suggest rejecting technology altogether. Instead, she calls for the cultivation of a biliterate brain: one that preserves the deep-reading circuit alongside the agility of digital processing. This requires intentional practice, and there are simple ways to begin:

Set aside daily deep-reading time (15–30 minutes with print or long-form texts).
Create phone-free spaces and times (meals, bedrooms, classrooms).
Encourage boredom and unstructured play so the mind learns to tolerate stillness.
Model digital balance by showing children what sustained focus looks like.
Build friction into devices (turn off notifications, use distraction blockers, keep chargers out of bedrooms).
Before reach for social media, seek social connection (fill the gaps with actual eye contact and conversation)

I think again of the children at the restaurant, heads bent over their glowing screens. Adaptation is not optional; the developing brain will always adapt. The real question is: into what? As Wolf reminds us, every choice we make about how we read, play, and wait shapes the mind’s capacity for depth.

The developing brain is pliable clay. Every swipe, every silence, every book, every unfilled moment presses its shape. I remember the feel of that Play-Doh in my childhood hands, the rolling, cutting, blending, the way it soaked me in presence while life happened around me. That memory lingers not because of the toy itself but because of the space it created: quiet, creative, and deeply human. Our children deserve the same chance. Clay shapes clay, and the forms we encourage now will determine what kinds of thinkers, readers, and dreamers we will have in our future.

References

Baumgartner, S. E., Weeda, W. D., van der Heijden, L. L., & Huizinga, M. (2014). The relationship between media multitasking and executive function in early adolescents. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 34(8), 1120–1144. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431614523133

Clinton, V. (2019). Reading from paper compared to screens: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Research in Reading, 42(2), 288–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12269

Delgado, P., Vargas, C., Ackerman, R., & Salmerón, L. (2018). Don’t throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension. Educational Research Review, 25, 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.09.003

Hinshaw, S. P., & Scheffler, R. M. (2014). The ADHD explosion: Myths, medication, money, and today’s push for performance. Oxford University Press.

Immordino-Yang, M. H., Christodoulou, J. A., & Singh, V. (2012). Rest is not idleness: Implications of the brain’s default mode for human development and education. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 352–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612447308

Lauterman, T., & Ackerman, R. (2014). Overconfidence in comprehension of digital texts. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 396–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.009

Montag, C., & Reuter, M. (2017). Internet addiction: Neuroscientific approaches and therapeutical implications including smartphone addiction. Springer.

Wolf, M. (2007). Proust and the squid: The story and science of the reading brain. Harper.

Wolf, M. (2018). Reader, come home: The reading brain in a digital world. HarperCollins.