Smartphones are not making us smarter
While many adults now spend half their waking hours glued to their smartphones, most of us know that it isn’t good for us.
These gadgets don’t make us smarter, they just make us more addicted to finding the latest update on the news, the funniest Youtube video, or the most “likes” on our Facebook or Twitter profiles.
However, while we may not always do the right thing for ourselves, it is our job as parents to do the right thing for our children.
Which is why it may surprise you to learn that some 14,000 toddlers in Britain are the proud owners of their very own smartphone. For children at infant school, the figure is some 70,000.
I was horrified to discover that gadgets aimed specifically at young children are sold online as “toddler smartphones”.
What on earth would a fouryear-old need a smartphone for, you may well ask? Indeed, who exactly are they calling? “Hi, Mummy. Can I have some biscuits with my milk, please?”
Of course, they, like most adults, aren’t using their smartphones as phones, but as playthings to occupy every last minute of every waking hour.
We are in dangerous territory here. Otherwise perfectly intelligent people I know insist that their children’s smartphones or ipads are helping them learn how to play, how to think and even how to speak – despite all evidence to the contrary.
Is it any wonder, then, that teachers complain that so many children arrive for their first day at school not even knowing how to talk?
We need to interact with other human beings just to be “human” – while babies and young children need that interaction even more than adults.
A child can’t learn the miracle of language simply by holding a smartphone – and they certainly can’t learn other key things, such as empathy, sharing and taking turns.
An entire generation is now being raised on a diet of apps and the job of parenting has been offloaded onto a digital flat screen.
Sorry, but human beings don’t work that way.