Exposing children to technology

This post is in response to a post by David Wees entitled What are the effects of exposing children to technology at a very young age?

Personally I’m a big fan of technology, but just as there are books, films, ideas, activities for children and there are books, films, ideas, activities for adults, so it is I think, with technology. Most kids these days anywhere in the Western(ized) world will inevitably be in touch with large amounts of technology from an early age, and to be honest your son has probably had less contact than many.

My kids are getting more involved with tech nowadays. They watch TV on the weekends, and they’re both using computers a very small amount at home. Both would like more, but that’s all I’m giving them for now. They’ve no need for a cellphone, they’re too young to allow ipods or anything similar because they’ll blow out their eardrums or do serious damage for the future. They sometimes play on an XBox or a Wii when round at a friend’s house, but I have no intention of having one of those things at home.

I think I have more of an issue with the TV than with the others, because of the way the imagery affects our brains – concentration spans, etc. I don’t think using a computer has the same effect, nor does a cellphone or the other things I mentioned.

However, I feel, very strongly, that young children need to be active, and sitting in front of a TV or a computer just isn’t that. I also think that there are a lot of habits, customs, behaviours that we learn when we are very young and that stay with us for life, and these need to be taught/experienced for that learning to take place. So they need to play, jump, be creative, have accidents, learn to limit their behaviours, run, fall, etc. They need to get bored and create their own entertainment, not have it provided for them. They need to learn how to interact with other young children, and how to behave around adults.

So for us, that’s what we chose to do with our kids when they were younger, and we continue to do that because it has now become a family habit, it’s healthier for all of us. I think this is an issue people really need to think about. Sure, tech is great, I love it, I’d be dripping with the stuff if I could afford it, but I think it is not necessarily right for children to be actively involved with it too much. Just as I’m not going to read them literature for older people, show them films for over 15s, teach them swearwords (ok, I’m not perfect in that aspect!), etc, so I’m not going to allow them to spend hours watching tv or playing computer games or listening to an ipod. There are better things for them to be doing with their time, and they’ll have plenty of time to play with those things at a more appropriate age.

Sometimes I think we (society in general) forget that children are not the same as adults, they really are different and perceive the world differently and we must consider that in our actions regarding them. Give them time to be children, it’s such a short period of time and there really should be no hurry for them to stop being children. There are so many important learning experiences that are a part of childhood, and if we don’t think carefully about what that means and how we can ensure such learning experiences take place, we’re going to find ourselves (as a society/species) losing an important aspect of our humanity.

By that I mean that although sure, kids can play around with lots of tech, use it better than many adults, do fantastic things with it, I’m not sure that’s a sensible part of childhood.  Consider a lot of the ethical issues we’re having to deal with – such as piracy, intellectual property, plagiarism, illegal downloads, etc.  We’re giving our children access to things that enable them to do all sorts of things, the consequences of which they don’t have the faculties to evaluate properly.  There’s a reason why we insist children are over a certain age before they drive.  Although you can’t really apply that appropriately to this topic, you can certainly considering restricting access.

As far as the wiring in our brains is concerned – the wiring in everyone’s brains is being affected by their experiences, and different experiences create different people. But one thing is, I think, clear. The wider the range of experiences, the better. So if he is spending a lot of time with tech, that needs to be balanced by a lot of time doing other things too.

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