Ming (Agents of Speech) argues that pervasive instant gratification from screens fosters addictive checking behavior and may harm young children’s social and language development. He suggests heavy screen exposure produces a dependence that disrupts learning and interaction — even calling it "virtual autism" as a personal opinion — and describes behavioral withdrawal when access is restricted.
Because we've been hit with that instant gratification all the time. We keep on wanting to check. So if we go to the toilet, we don't have our phone to scroll, we feel anxious. That is what I'm talking about. But the discussion about how the screen and how these quick, fast fixes to what we want, we press it and we get. How does that affect young children? We don't know yet. That's my personal opinion. That's creating these virtual autism. It's because they're addicted to something. So if you've seen anyone who's addicted to something, you don't let them have it. What are they going to do? They're going to be a jerk to you because you are standing in the way between what they want they're obsessed with and you're someone who is trying to limit the dose of what they're addicted to. Right. So once they're in that state, all the language goes out the window. They're not learning how to interact, so on and so forth. So when you stop them from being screen junkies, right?
