Too much screen time causing a digital 'dementia', new study finds

For years, people have been warned that too much screen time can be bad for their health.

But with an ever-growing reliance and dependence on technology in most households, studies are seeing a link between cognitive changes and activities, like watching TV, using computers and using phones and pads.

Neuroscientist, Dr Rahul Jandial said this digital "dementia" sees symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease and can have a major impact on how we function at a daily level.

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"This isn't the same kind of brain decay or neuronal issue, however, memory, attention and critical thinking are all affected with too much screen time," he told Today Extra.

Dr Jandial said the studies looked at a large number of people and how many hours they're on the screen and found issues with learning and remembering new events, places and things.

"Only now are we starting to quantify that similarity to dementia and that this happens around four, five, six hours of sort of doom-scrolling or just scrolling endlessly," he said.

"It's not getting up and working and then coming onto your phone or watching Netflix and then working on your laptop, it's sort of the continuous looking at one app over and over again that draws you in."

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For anyone who does feel their brain health may be declining from too much screen time, Dr Jandial said there are three things he wants everybody to remember.

"Memory, attention and cognitive abilities are three things which can be affected by lack of sleep, can be affected by dementia, but also by excessive phone usage," he said.

"Memory is not just remembering what's going on during the day, but attention and recall with phone numbers, with addresses, with the meetings you're supposed to have and phones facilitate this, but by taking away that responsibility from our brain, I think there's also a risk that memory as a whole, memories of past events, future events can be affected.

"If you become too short-circuited with one function, the other functions are affected as well, so it's important to step away from the phone and exercise other types of memory without relying on the phone - I think that's the balance we really need to strike."

Hear the full chat with Dr Jandial in the video above