By Letters To The Editor
Copyright independent
Forty-three years ago I tripped and spilled the miscellaneous contents of an oblong metal tray down a poorly painted spiral staircase.
The sound lasted some seconds and I still recall a faint, if secreted, melody. To this day, I have yet to hear a greater musical work from any of our boy bands (and most others).
Eugene Tannam, Firhouse, Dublin 24
We know that screen time is bad for young minds, so how can we rectify this?
When we talk about technology, our children are way ahead of us, but they were born into this digital world.
A recent UK survey showed four out of 10 children own a tablet.
Experts are now saying that too much digital content at a young age could impact how children develop as they grow.
The World Health organisation (WHO) recommends no screen time for children under two years of age and only one hour a day for children aged two to four.
A paediatrician in Leicester Hospital, Dr Sanjiv Nichani, has observed changes in children of all ages over the past number of decades. What he found was “children aged two and three years of age attending his clinics with normal mobility and co-ordination not speaking”.
The reasons were that these children were spending too much time on screens with “the brain exposed to fast flashing images and sound”.
He concluded that digital technology, like smartphones, makes one “withdraw oneself from society, family, and most importantly activities”.
Children have become addicted to apps. A 2019 study conducted at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital showed that higher screen use by pre- schoolers is linked to changes in brain development, including the areas that support early literacy, attention span and language.
We talk about delayed speech and language for some children, some who are about to attend school, where they’re assessed incorrectly or categorised as having ADHD or some other functional disorder, when, in reality, it just comes down to excessive screen time.
Sadly these children have very short attention spans and cannot concentrate sufficiently to carry out tasks in the learning environment.
Another study showed a clear causal link between excessive smartphone use and social media influence and anxiety and depression.
If that cycle is not broken it will manifest itself into adult life.
Parental guidance and awareness is severely lacking, but where is the happy medium?
Christy Galligan, Letterkenny, Co Donegal
I can’t understand why the GAA and RTÉ are so happy to host the NFL in Ireland
I was utterly floored by Joe -Brolly’s -article (‘GAA doesn’t need to -entertain the NFL’s militaristic version of America’, Independent.ie, September 14).
I have never seen the reasons why the NFL should not be hosted by the GAA articulated so effectively.
It’s a shame on our political class that 99pc of our politicians don’t have Brolly’s insight, clarity and especially, courage. RTÉ and the GAA are two of our biggest institutions, the former shuns Israel while the latter embraces its military backers. How does that make sense?
Peter McNally, Skerries, Co Dublin
Harris article a must-read for anyone who works or lives with autistic people
As a doctor I was fascinated by an article on autism written by Adam Harris (‘We must stand firm against offensive theories on the ‘cause’ and ‘cure’ for ‘fashionable’ autism’, Irish Independent, September 13).
Harris is CEO of AsIAm, Ireland’s national autism charity, he has a diagnosis of autism and was speaking after the international Autism Congress which took place in Dublin and had 2,000 delegates in attendance.
The Department of Education -estimates one in 20 children in school has autism. Harris talks about the misleading myths, rumour mills, misinformation and the problems caused by US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr concerning cause and diagnosis, while Harris himself favours overwhelming scientific evidence especially around vaccines.
This article is a must-read for all parents, professionals and teachers dealing with autistic children.
Dr Aidan Hampson, Artane, Dublin
The convenience of home delivery is simply all about perspective on its arrival
Édaein O’Connell asks: “Have we -become too reliant on home -delivery?” (Lifestyle, September 12).
The short answer is probably “yes”, for a variety of reasons.
Though, almost 70 years ago, I myself was the subject of a home delivery, my mother suddenly going into labour at lunchtime on a Thursday. Afterwards, she’d often say that she found it quite convenient.
Although my uncle Seán, who had just dropped in for a cuppa and a chat, didn’t find this particular “home delivery” any convenience at all.
Peter Declan O’Halloran, Belturbet, Co Cavan
Wrecking-ball president Trump is ensuring the States are far from united
I was acutely aware of the stature of the US as I grew up in the 1950s.
Living on the edge of Europe, whose states had just fought two World Wars, left me treasuring the concept of “united” in the United States of America.
In the early 1990s, I was across the Atlantic studying the art and science of security and defence alongside US and international defence colleagues.
Throughout this course, with brainwashing persistence, it was impressed upon us that the unbreakable strength of US democracy lay in its “separation of powers” – between the legislative power of Congress, the executive power of the president and the judicial power of the Supreme Court.
These “checks and balances”, we were assured, would prevent an unconstrained and undemocratic exercise of power.
Then last week, the assassination of Charlie Kirk proved another -profound indicator of the vacuity of the notion of “united” in the name of his country, whose president, Donald Trump – seemingly unconstrained by the separation of powers – sought to ramp up more distrust and disunity by blaming the “radical left”, even though the identity or motivation of the gunman was yet to be known.
This president’s incapacity to even momentarily ponder the principle of unity will continue to wreak human turmoil and deep trauma and not only in the “Disunited” States of America.
Michael Gannon, Saint Thomas Square, Kilkenny
