A technology-free start for children?
We need to better understand how the use of electronic devices affects young children and figure out how to ensure that these gadgets serve us best. IT is amazing to watch my granddaughter use the iPad. She swipes her finger across the screen, chooses her favourite programmes and even skips advertisements. Tiara Azalea is two years and four months. She can hardly speak or manage her own hygiene. And yet, give her a gadget and she is already like a pro.
When she gets bored in the car, she will spend time watching her favourite movies, Moana or Frozen.
When she gets grumpy, give her video character Blippi. To get her to eat, show her The Wheels on the Bus series or Diddi. Parenting made simple? Or a phenomenon
modern parents have to live with?
She is not alone. In the world we live in, technology is everywhere.
Children at a very young age are exposed to screens. Toddlers are bombarded with millions of images every day. Not surprisingly, they are addicted to the screen even before they can play. Or worse, before they learn to socialise.
The screen is changing the way they understand the world. Some argue that screen addiction among young kids is real.
We are not sure how it will impact upon our children. The Internet is still a work in progress, perhaps in its infancy even. We are not sure how humans will learn, work and socialise in the near future. While it can sound exciting, it can also be scary.
A study published recently in the United States found that children aged 8 to 18 are spending an average of 44.5 hours per week in front of screens. That is worrying.
There is yet a comprehensive study on how children below four are spending time on the Internet and what effect it has on them. In advertising lingo, they are not even qualified yet to be “respondents”, but they are as much exposed to screen images on TV or the Internet.
Parents have every reason to be concerned. So too educationists, child psychologists and behaviourists. We should be worried about whether early exposure to Internet devices will rob them of a natural childhood.
We all acknowledge the fact that screen addiction relates to time spent on these gadgets, however educational it may be. We can see how they lose their sense of time when they are “at it”. They get grumpy when they are interrupted or irritated when deprived.
Parenting in the 21st century isn’t easy. It is amazing how children today are brought up in a digital environment. It is a question of how young to start them on the Internet, some would argue.
The Internet will differentiate the know-alot from the know-less. Digital technology is the biggest disruptor in the history of mankind – for better or worse.
We can predict that tomorrow’s education will be based on tablets. Books will be the thing of the past.
But how much is much? How do we really prepare the young to have a childhood that we desire for them?
We want them to be prepared for the future but at the same time, we must develop the necessary tools and ecosystem to ensure that they are social beings, first and last.
We have seen too many stories about adolescents immersing themselves in the world of video games, becoming reclusive at best or societal pests at worse.
I read in The Sunday Times Magazine two weeks ago about how Silicon Valley titans, the ones who got our kids addicted to screens, are sending their own children to elite, tech-free schools.
The piece by Danny Fortson is an eye-opener indeed. As Apple celebrates the 11th birthday of iPhone, it is important to reflect how its creation has become a pivotal moment for mankind.
Today, three billion humans are on IPhones. Many of them, according to one observer, have turned into “dopamine-frazzled zombies”.
One school in San Francisco, where the Silicon Valley lies, is about going back to basics. It has a strict “no-screens policy”.
As nicely put by Fortson, “in the crucible of the global technology industry, the same executives who have flooded the world with smartphones and addictive social media apps happily pay up to US$40,000 (RM167,900) a year to wall off their kids from their creations”.
What an irony. And even more ironic, the creator of iPhone, the late Steve Jobs, sent his daughter to the school back in 1984!
What about our kids? Should we seriously think of a “technology-free” start for them?
We all agree on one thing, that modern technology is addictive by design. Questions must be asked. When is the right time for young kids to be exposed to technology, for it is unavoidable in today’s world?
We can’t expect kids today to go back to the world that my generation once lived in – running around and getting dirty on the open fields and only hearing the dial tones when we started working. We cannot turn back the tide of time.
But for the sake of Tiara Azalea and her generation, we need to chart a plan for a world where modern gadgets are meant to be used wisely and not for them to lead us.