Primary school children are struggling to sit up straight on the carpet or in chairs thanks to a childhood spent staring at screens instead of playing outside, concerned teachers and educational experts have warned.
Many are unable to cope with the long hours in class when they first enter school, often slumping onto the floor or falling out of their seats.
It’s all being attributed to an astonishing increase in tablet and smartphone use among young children, introducing a screen addiction at a young age which soon becomes their main source of entertainment over visits to the playground or the park.
More than a quarter (26 per cent) of five to 12-year-olds spend three or more hours on such devices every day, with 7 per cent racking up over five hours daily, according to stats by children’s play experts Outdoor Toys.
Unsurprisingly, this leaves little time for exercise and traditional forms of fun, with less than half (44 per cent) getting two hours of outdoor play each day and a whopping 30 per cent not getting out the house at all most days.
This inactivity has had a huge impact on children’s muscle development, making it difficult for them to sit up straight for substantial periods of time.
Michelle Windridge, who has been teaching at a school in Birmingham for 20 years, said that pupils were now having to be taught basic movement taken for granted in previous generations.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘iPads are really convenient, but they don’t develop children’s muscles, growth and motor skills like play does.
Primary school children are struggling to sit up straight on the carpet or in chairs thanks to a childhood spent staring at screens instead of playing outside, say teachers (Stock Photo)
‘They’re really restricted when they come to learn to hold a pencil, form letters and handwrite. You’re trying to teach them things that, years ago, children were arriving at school already able to do.
‘Now you have to teach them those movements when they start school, because there’s such a decline in their physical skills when they start.
‘If they are not developing those skills, it can lead to them being uncomfortable, and sometimes in actual pain as well.’
The teacher, 43, refused to blame parents for the worrying lack of exercise many children now get, pointing out that the trend is down to a number of factors.
‘Over the last 10 years there has been a decline in children playing outside, going to the park and the climbing frames,’ she said.
‘There are lots of reasons for that. Most households now have both parents working. The children are picked up, put in the car, taken to nursery, and back again.
‘Lots of parents come from a good place, finding apps to help with maths and things when they are little, but it is all just lots and lots of time sitting and swiping for extended periods – and not at a table either, often slouched on a sofa or a bed.’
Ms Windridge’s school has aimed to turn the seemingly irreversible tide of early onset screen addiction by banning certain devices altogether.
Michelle Windridge, who has been teaching at a school in Birmingham for 20 years, said that pupils were now having to be taught basic movement taken for granted in previous generations
‘We took the decision 10 years ago to remove all tech from our classroom because children needed experience in developing relationships and communicating with each other.
‘I have had some children, in rare circumstances, that have come to the school gates holding an iPad and I’ve had to pry it out of their fingers to physically get them through the door, because they go to sleep with their iPads, they even watch it as they brush their teeth.’
‘I’ve used iPads with my children. It can be part of family life in every aspect so definitely there has been a decline in physical skills.
‘I’ve seen a decline [in children’s physical capabilities] over my 20-year career so it is definitely something we are worried about.’
Many parents will be shocked at the idea of their children slumping on the school carpet, but Ms Windridge said there are things they can to do to stop this happening.
The primary school teacher, who has a 12-year-old daughter herself, suggested encouraging young ones to experiment with modelling clay and putty and getting them to help out with chores such as pegging the washing on the line.
She also extoled the virtues of taking children to the park to skip run, hop, climb and do all the things their predecessors enjoyed on a daily basis.
But above all she is insistent that this trend must be reversed, before children’s ability to make the most of education nosedives completely.
Ms Windridge added: ‘If a child’s uncomfortable when they’re sitting because they haven’t got the strength they need to be able to sit, they’re not going to listen, they are not going to be able to concentrate and they are not going to be able to learn.’
Dr Tej Samani, who runs educational company Performance Learning, which collects data and visits schools in a bid to improve how students learn, went as far as to describe the phenomenon as ‘one of the biggest shifts’ he had seen in the classroom.
He said: ‘I’ve seen it get worse and worse over the last five to seven years. This is real.
‘Even during lunchtime, in dinner halls and canteens across the country, there is less talking and more interacting with each other over phones.
‘It is something I see daily in schools. There’s not been a school I’ve walked into where I have not seen children hunched over in a group on screens. It’s just become common nature.’
Tablet and smartphone addiction is not just having an impact on students’ muscles but also on their ability to communicate, the honorary research fellow at Sussex University added.
Where the devices were once used by children to watch videos, learn, or let their parents know they were on their way home, they are now all-encompassing, with students hooked on a wide range of social media sites.
Indeed, aspiring TikTokers and influencers are no longer laughed out of the room, they are the norm.
Dr Samani added that the issue will only get worse given that ‘no one is talking about it’.
He said: ‘It is really silent. Everyone talks about phone addiction, but no one really talks about the effect it has on posture, low energy, poor concentration, poor confidence.
‘We are seriously underestimating the severity of this. This is a big deal.
‘The pace at which AI is becoming accessible on phones, it is only going to create more addiction because your phone will literally do everything for you.
Dr Tej Samani, who runs educational company Performance Learning, went as far as to describe the phenomenon as ‘one of the biggest shifts’ he had seen in the classroom
‘It’s not a vehicle any more, it’s an emotional attachment so severe and so extreme that taking that away results in an identity crisis.’
How to remedy this? Dr Samani has plenty of ideas, but banning screens is not one of them.
‘I think it’s a balance,’ he said. ‘Set screen zones and times and encourage movement breaks and good habits.
‘I had this idea where schools can build short posture resets. Swap one 30-minute scroll for a 30-minute walk.
‘Or pair kids up with a posture buddy. If one of them slumps, the other reminds them to sit tall and reward kids for that.
‘Or movement triggers… every time an ad pops up or a level finishes, stand up and shake it out.
‘I think there are a lot of simple things we can do, but we just don’t do them. It needs to be addressed.’
Going from using tablets to learn maths and English to being unable to carry out basic bodily movements may seem a stretch.
But Dr Dean Eggitt, who has a practice in Doncaster, explained that it is strikingly similar to a phenomenon we have long seen in older people.
He said: ‘If you leave a human being in the same position long enough, they will adopt that position.
‘With the elderly when they sit in chairs or lay in beds, we often used to joke, with poor humour, that they would become chair-shaped or bed-shaped.
‘But that’s actually quite true. People develop what we call contractures so if you don’t stretch out muscles, tendons or ligaments, they tend to shorten and solidify in that position.
‘They lose some of the elasticity and range of movement they have and it is incredibly painful to stretch them back out again and lengthen them. And because of that pain, people don’t tend to stretch it out or straighten it out, they stay in that position.’
Dr Eggitt compared the issues to a comparable one seen in young swimmers, who often develop a hunched position due to their strong chest muscles which pull their shoulders forward.
He said: ‘If we extrapolate and assume the same with a child who has sat for many hours on end at a desk using a tablet, the muscles they use will grow and the muscles they don’t will waste away and this will change the posture position of their body.
‘The problem with this is that it is quite insiduous. You don’t really think about it as it’s happening.
‘If you have somebody who is doing breaststroke all the time, some of their exercise might actually be the opposite of breastroke when they are outside the pool or in the gym, just to ensure they don’t knacker their body by having an imbalance.
‘The same could be said for children using iPads and sat down for long periods of time. They need to very much do the exact opposite of that if they are going to get a balanced body.’
