Technology; the Necessary Evil?

 

To some parents, the idea of technology and their young child using it, can seem taboo. I live in the mountains and sometimes at my work the conversation regarding kids and screen time comes up. Most of the time, when screen time is discussed, it is talked about in a negative way, which is understandable. People at my work keep saying to let you kids play outside and be kids. But what I don’t think the people at my work, realize (and maybe other people and parents too) is that the world is changing and putting a big emphasis on technology and the advancement of it. We want our children to grow up and be successful adults and whatever that success looks like for them, will probably involve some kind of technology. Now I know we are not teaching our 0-5 year old’s to code programs (although I know this is becoming more popular in schools,) we are able to use the technology we have as a tool when used appropriately.

When technology is used in a classroom, “it should only be used for learning and meeting developmental objectives…” according to the article, “Guiding Principles for Use of Technology with Early Learners.” This article then goes on to explain that technology should be incorporated in the lesson plan, but should not replace other learning classroom materials. One example they provided was using an E-book rather than a physical book. I read “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury when I was younger and I think reading that made me more anti E-book but I can see the benefits for a young reader to have an E-book over a physical one. With an E-book, “words and sentences can be highlighted during oral narration.” This could be a tool to help children reinforce what the teacher has taught them about how to read. Another benefit for using technology at a young age is that it is beneficial to children with learning disabilities. For children who struggle with communication, technology has been able to help children communicate efficiently.

In my opinion, I do see the benefits of technology for young children. This doesn’t mean that I don’t see the possibilities for challenges. One challenge would be that technology is more effective when a parent or teacher is there working with the child while they are using technology. I think this could be seen as a challenge because I don’t think many parents know this. There are many commercials for different learning games that are for young children but none specify the importance of the parent working with the child while playing these games. I also could see this being a challenge because some parents might be too busy to play learning games with their child. Parents might hand over some form of technology because they are busy and need a few minutes to complete a task. It is not to say that children will not learn from the game or app they are working on, but they are more likely to learn more if there is some type of scaffolding from a parent or teacher.

“Absent Presence,” could affect child development because the caregiver could be too distracted from technology to see their child’s different cues. By not seeing their child’s cues, the child could feel neglected and this could affect their attachment towards their caregiver. Reports have also found that teenagers express negative emotions when asked about their parents’ use of technology. They use words like lonely, sad, and angry. Overall it seems as if “absent presence,” could affect the relationship between the caregiver and the child which could result in the child feeling insecure about their relationship towards that person.

I didn’t start letting my son watch educational videos until he was two years old. He is now 5 years old and has his own tablet. When he was young, he didn’t know how to work it and I had to work it for him. Now that he is older, he can work numerous different forms of technology like his tablet, a cell phone, and a smart TV. When he first started being able to work different devices, I always noticed and wondered if I was allowing him to play on it too often, should he know how to do these things? There are different games I let him play, some are just for fun because he enjoys them, but others are specifically learning games. Since I have been in child development, I have learned that there is such a thing as too much screen time and I have worked this into how often he is using technology. I also have learned that it is more beneficial to interact with him while he is playing a learning game, so I have started doing that these last few years as well. I won’t lie though, I don’t mind him playing on his tablet when we are on long car drives. I will take it away when I want him to experience the drive and see the sights outside of the car though.

I found a pamphlet online that provides a lot of useful information about what we know about how technology affects children. This pamphlet is reassuring that there are many benefits when technology is used appropriately. I think parents would find the information in this pamphlet beneficial and would answer many of their questions like does screen time affect a child’s sleep? There are also a lot of diagrams that help give the readers a visual of some of the data that has been collected. I also think this pamphlet could benefit teachers as well as there is a section discussing internet safety. https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/Booklet-21st-century-children.pdf

I am sure there are many parents and caregivers out there that are unaware of the effects of early childhood exposure to technology. Young children have to get a check up almost every year and I think this would be a good time for a nurse or doctor to discuss this to the parents or caregivers. Parents should know this information especially since technology and its use is only increasing in schools. I think there would be some parents that would be surprised by the research that has been done and would think about their own personal use of technology as well as their child’s use if a professional informed them and provided some of the research data.

References

Burns, T. & Gottschalk, F. (2019). What do we know about children and technology? OECD. https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/Booklet-21st-century-children.pdf

No Author. (No Date). Guiding principles for use of technology with early learners. Office of Educational Technology. https://tech.ed.gov/earlylearning/principles/

McDaniel BT. Parent distraction with
phones, reasons for use, and impacts on parenting and child outcomes: A review of the emerging research. Hum Behav & Emerg Tech. 2019;1:72–80. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.13980MCDANIEL