Media technology is here to stay and has become a permanent part of our lives. But there is great concern about how it may be affecting our children. I believe we can learn to embrace its advantages, reduce its adverse effects and raise children who can still relate heart-to-heart with people, appreciate and participate in the beauty and wonders of nature and grow up to be well-rounded, healthy, caring and compassionate adults. The challenge for parents is to understand the benefits and pitfalls of children’s technology use and to help their children create balance in their lives.
Research tells us that developing children thrive when they are talked to, read to, played with and given time for creative play, physically active play, and interactions with other children and adults. And there’s no research showing the benefits of introducing children to new technologies in the first years of life. Yet educators face increasing pressure to increase the amount of time children spend with digital technologies in early childhood settings, taking valuable time and resources away from activities proven to benefit learning and development.
Reminiscing about the good old days when we were growing up is a memory trip well worth taking when trying to understand the issues facing the children of today. A mere 20 years ago, children used to play outside all day, riding bikes, playing sports and building forts. Masters of imaginary games, children of the past created their own form of play that didn’t require costly equipment or parental supervision. Children of the past moved… a lot, and their sensory world was nature based and simple. In the past, family time was often spent doing chores, and children had expectations to meet on a daily basis. The dining room table was a central place where families came together to eat and talk about their day, and after dinner became the center for baking, crafts and homework.
Today’s families are different. Technology’s impact on the 21st century family is fracturing its very foundation, and causing a disintegration of core values that long ago were the fabric that held families together. Juggling school, work, home, and community lives, parents now rely heavily on communication, information, and transportation technology to make their lives faster and more efficient. Entertainment technology (TV, Internet, video games, iPads, cell phones) has advanced so rapidly, that families have scarcely noticed the significant impact and changes to their family structure and lifestyles.
The amount of time children spend using media technology, including computers, cell phones, video games and MP3 players among others, is setting off alarms. Children and teens between ages eight and 18 spend an average of seven hours and 38 minutes daily playing video games, going online and watching TV, and most have no household rules governing how much time they’re allowed to spend doing these things.The fear is not only that this technology is replacing physical and imaginative play, but that it also may be diminishing development of social skills, heart connection and empathy for others.
The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children’s ability to think.
Studies over the past decade have concluded that a large number of adolescents and teens today are having difficulty identifying emotions in people, thus creating an inability to feel empathy toward others who may be feeling pain, sorrow, anger and other emotions. There is concern that excessive viewing of real or contrived violence online and/or playing video games that are violent or contain other age-inappropriate content could be numbing the sensitivities of young people, immunizing them from experiencing compassion and caring for others.
I strongly encourage parents and adults to closely monitor children’s media technology habits and the time they spend with media, beginning at an early age and continuing through adolescence and the teen years. It’s important to help children to create a balance between their relationship with technology and activities that nurture their social, emotional and physical skills.
Exposure to technology isn’t all bad. My philosophy is that technology can also play a role in helping children develop socially and emotionally, when used in balance. Media has helped children care about what is happening on the other side of the world, giving them access to people of different cultures and lifestyles in a click. Research shows that, for example, video games and other screen media improve visual-spatial capabilities, increase attentional ability, reaction times, and the capacity to identify details among clutter. Technology is creating common platforms of socialization, exchange of information leading to more understanding and connectedness to the greater whole. Online polls allow teens to participate in social issues. Through blogging, many youths feel they have a voice on different social issues, allowing expression of their perspectives and learning about other people’s perspectives as well. Many are getting involved in online social causes and movements happening worldwide, from saving endangered species to raising money for the homeless.
The technology world is a place for parents and grandparents to interact and communicate with children, even though the learning curve can be a challenge for many of us. It’s important to enter into the world where our children are increasingly spending more and more time. By learning to navigate that world with them, we can better guide them on how to manage themselves and their time within it.
What does all this mean for raising your children? The bottom line is that too much screen time and not enough other activities, such as reading, playing games, and good old unstructured and imaginative play, will result in your children having their brains wired in ways that may make them less, not more, prepared to thrive in this crazy new world of technology.
I hope that you all found this post resourceful and very beneficial! Thanks guys for tuning in! Until next time… Peace and blessings to you all!
– Myra
thee millennialist 