Digital toys can’t take the place of real imagination

The American Academy of Pediatrics has advice for parents buying Christmas presents for their kids. Oldfashioned toys beat the digital variety every time.

We’re talking about traditional playthings such as dolls, Lego sets, toy trains, colouring books and the like. In large part, these have given way to electronic devices that turn the child into a passive observer.

And there are numerous problems with that. Part of the value of traditional toys is that they require interaction. Psychologists have found that games that engage young children in active participation enhance brain development and language skills, particularly in the pre-school years.

Again, old-style toys can be shared with playmates — another valuable contribution to childhood development. Digital devices are harder to share — they demand the full attention of whoever is using them.

They also tend to employ catchy features such as music and voice reproduction that act as a replacement for the child’s own imagination.

More than that, they are a replacement for parental involvement. There’s a ton of research showing that the most important learning experience for young children is interacting with others, most critically their parents.

Of course, the manufacturers of digital toys get that. Their response is to describe them as “educational,” and many parents fall for that.

But in reality, these products shut kids off from the world around them and encourage a form of dependency that grooms them for more intrusive technologies later in life — the internet and everything that comes with it.

We see the impact all around us. A friend tells of hearing a guy in the street call his wife on a cellphone and say: “Hi there, I’m just round the corner, I’ll be home in a second.”

So why the phone call? Can’t he put it down for a minute?

In a sense, we’re becoming addicted to technologies that promise to be helpful, and end up owning us. We can’t do without them.

It has been estimated that teens spend an average of nine hours a day online — more than half their waking lives. Some get up in the middle of the night to check their text messages and hurry off an answer.

Who are they talking to? An electronic avatar of someone they might never meet. Or worse still, someone who is not who he appears to be.

One in four teens receive unsolicited sex messages on their phones, and one in seven reply. Down this road lies not just addiction, but a form of enslavement.

Look at Anthony Weiner, the U.S. congressman who was forced to resign due to sexting, swore he would stop, got caught again, lost his marriage and went to jail for contacting an underage girl.

This is a man with a serious job and a glowing future, and he can’t give up behaviour that is almost guaranteed to get him caught.

The concern is that as digital devices grow in sophistication, so does their potential for entrapment. But kids who are brought up with digital toys are more likely to stray down this road, because we’ve programmed them to do just that.

So forget the Wonder Workshop Dash robot. Dump the VTech Kidizoom Camera (comes with a “selfie feature,” of course.) And stay away from the JJFun Handheld Game Console for Children.

Give them books you can read to them. Give them a toy you can help them assemble. Give them building blocks and help them make a castle.

In short, let their imagination take hold of the real world, not some enticing cyber space. For down that road lie dragons, and not the imaginary kind.