Monday, 22 September 2014

Children should be kept away from electronic products

Introduction

Technology has become an integral part of our lives in the 21st century. There is no sphere or stage of life where technology does not have a role to play; since it has made life easy and smooth for us humans giving us more time for leisure or to employ ourselves better in pursuit of a better standard of living. It is also noted, that technology is deeply impacting the earliest stages in childhood development, weaving a new set of dynamics in human life. This essay specifically studies the impact of technology on early childhood development; elucidating on the topic keeping an unbiased approach and listing both pros and cons of the trend.
Before we list any arguments in favour or opposition of technology’s impact on early childhood development, we must first understand the meaning of two essential parts of this essay i.e. technology and early childhood development.

Technology

Simply put, technology is the application of human knowledge and innovation to reduce human effort. Any outcome of an innovative endeavour that minimises human effort in the design, production and application of goods and services can be termed as technology. The earliest traces of technology can be found in the Stone Age, when early men carved instruments like knife from stone to minimise effort in hunting with bare hands.
In context of early childhood development, technology is any aid that influences the developmental process of a child’s lifecycle. Whether, this influence has a positive or negative impact is the subject of discussion in this paper.

Early Childhood Development

The World wide accepted definition of early childhood is the span from birth to the age of 8 years. It is the time period when the child develops the most, physically, emotionally, socially and mentally. The skills acquired at this stage are used for the rest of our lives. Child psychologists have divided this life stage into five major parts; the knowledge of which is must to determine the impact of technology on child development, since these parts highlight the key areas in which child grows during the first eight years.
1.       Cognitive Development- This stage is composed of three parts; the sensorimotor phase (age 0-2 years) where the child learns mostly through sensation. The preoperational phase (age 2-7 years) in which the children are imaginative and self oriented; and the last being concrete phase (approx from first grade to early adolescence) where child acquires critical reasoning skills.
2.       Linguistic Development- This is dependent not only on mental development but also the physical development of speech mechanisms (tongue and vocal chord). Development at this stage requires a healthy physical development as well as interaction and exchange to acquire language skills.
3.       Physical Development- Children grow the most during their early developmental years. Typically a baby would grow 3 times its birth weight every 6 months; post that he/she gains 2.5 inches of height and 5-7lbs of weight each year. Also activity level is highest between ages 3-5 years. Hence the stress on physical development at this stage.
4.       Psychosocial Development- It is during the first two years babies develop values such as trust (on their environment); later activities such as toilet training determine the level of confidence, feeling of guilt, pride and failure in children. Hence a lot of psychological and social development is impacted.
5.       Emotional Development- In the first 2 years children develop a sense of emotions such as pride and embarrassment. Later they throw temper tantrums however, by early innocence they mature to control negative emotions. Conclusively a lot of emotional development in children happens in the earliest stages of childhood.   

Comparing early childhood development in context of modern technological environment vis-à-vis, traditional low technological impact environment


Research suggests that technology has mixed effects on early childhood development. Low technologically impacted environments differ widely from the modern environments where the developmental process of the child is significantly impacted due to the penetration of technology in each household. Some points in this context are discussed below.
Repeated experiments and studies have highlighted that media such as television and video games have surely impacted childhood development however, negatively or positively is a subject of debate. It has been observed that such technology has increased the visual reasoning skills in children; the most explicit example being that of surgeons who played video game often were likely to excel at surgery. Thus regarding video games as better practice, than surgery itself.
It was also found that children now, are more comfortable in multi tasking (due to exposure to a wide array of complex technology) than their ancestors. However, it also rings true that children in the past could retain information longer and in volumes due to singular focus. This is verified by a study, where children who viewed CNN Headline news with only the news reader could retain more information vis-à-vis children who saw the standard format of multiple graphics on screen.
Technology has also seemingly impacted the critical reasoning and motor skills of the children. Children today can multitask and process visual information faster than generations of the past but, they fail when it comes to focussing on a single point or the solving of complex problems which require extended attention span. Also children of the past were more endowed when it came to physical skills such as running, climbing or even simply walking. This helped them to remain physically fit, develop social relations and develop emotions (such as that of friendship, bonding and sharing among others) as well. However children of today lack good motor skills; technologies such as seat belts, toddler carriers, baby seat or, walking assistance for babies (walkers) restrict movement thus, impacting physical well being in the earliest stages of development.
Educators and parents need to understand where to draw the fine line between use and over use of technology; so that it has the minimum adverse effect on a child’s growth. For example, educators can promote internet as a means of research among children rather than propagating it as a means for learning. Learning by doing can be promoted in such a case.

Disadvantages of technology in context of child development

In the past one needed to move to live; the situation now is that one needs technology in order to live. This attitude has shaped due to changing outlooks of current generation of parents, educators and the masses in general. Children of this age would rather spend time surfing on the internet or playing video games whereas, children of yester years used to spend most of their time playing outdoors, roughing it out, making castles on the beach or riding bikes. This dramatic change in habits of toddlers and children has resulted in a negative impact on their development in more than one way. Some of the important ones are discussed below.
1.       Social and Psychological- The three basic pillars of healthy psychological and physical development are movement, touch and connect to other human beings. Earlier children used to play outdoors, which not only kept them fit but also promoted their interaction with fellow human beings inculcating human characteristics and values in them (like that of compassion, bonding, as well as sense of achievement among others). Children today live a sedentary lifestyle, staying mostly indoors (as increasing number of parents think that outdoors are ‘unsafe’) which is contrary to the principles of healthy development. Being isolated from other humans due to addictive nature of technology such as video games or television has prevented mental/psychological growth. Lack of sensory development or inappropriate development (due to overload of sensory data from mediums such as cable tv) is leading to psychological and health issues among children from an early age. More numbers of such children are ending up as ‘lonely’ and depressed individuals when they grow up, due to social skills being negligibly developed.
2.       Vision, Perception and Imagination- Spending long hours looking at a two dimensioned glowing screen at a fixed distance vis-à-vis looking at varied objects at varying position and of varying sizes in an outdoor location, is badly affecting the visual and ocular development of children at an early stage. This has resulted in limited visual perception and decreased attention span and focus among children. Also, a lack of imagination has been observed; weak eyesight is an accompanying disadvantage. 
3.       Physically Unfit- A growing number of children are being diagnosed with diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, stress and depression among others. Lack of physical exercise resulting from being hooked on to the television or ipad all day long, or movement being restrained due to toddler bucket seats or strap-on carriers; is leading to the growing numbers of unhealthy children. Sedentary lifestyles and easy availability of wrong dietary habits (junk food) is the foremost cause of young deaths around the world. Technology has surely taken its toll on the young citizen’s population.

Advantages of technology in context of child development

Although academicians have widely debated technology’s harmful effect on early childhood development, a large number of researchers, parents, scholars and doctors have also put valid points in favour of technology having positive impact on early childhood development. Some of such key points in favour of technology are stated below.

1.       Visual interpretation and multi-tasking- Children who are exposed to modern technology and especially media technologies are more likely to interpret faster, the complex visual presentation and exhibit quick decision making. Also handling complex technologies and applications at once has made children dextrous in handling multiple tasks at a go.
2.       Language skills- Children familiar with technologies such as SMS, Emails, Phone, certain audio based programs (movies and tele-series) are able to polish their language skills through these mediums. They get a wider audience to interact with and in turn may also pick up new trends in language (not heard of in their immediate physical environment)
3.       Assertive individuals/Unique self identity- The availability of personalised technology such as music players and personal computers has enabled one to make informed personal choices easily, without having to face opposition. Hence, youngsters are surer about their likes and dislikes now (as compared to youngsters in the past). This has helped young ones to have a sense of uniqueness and to be able to assert it too. 
4.       Reasoning, logic and academic excellence- Supervised TV habits and utilising specialised software and applications has aided education and better understanding. Technology in this sphere has surely led to academic excellence.
5.       Special Needs- Thanks to technology that differently-able children can experience outdoors like never before (example being use of prosthetic limbs). Also, technology has aided learning among children with special tutoring needs (autistic or visually impaired children)
6.       Social and human behaviour of the space age- Some scholars even argue that introducing children to technology at an early age is only stimulating their adaptation to a space age, the dynamics of which will be ruled by technology alone.

Conclusion

Drawing a conclusion from above it would be easy to sum up that exposure to technology at an early developmental stage in childhood has its own pros and cons. However, the tricky part is to identify the fine line between use and overuse.
Researchers and parents must come together to determine how the harm from the use of technology can be minimised and how technology can be made more useful and pro development of a child. Guidelines must be laid down which can make parents (or a child’s guardian) understand the need to draw a limit on the use of technology, to a point where it stops being advantageous.
An answer to the problem (dealt with in the essay) cannot be drawn in black and white thus, all perspectives of the issue have been thoroughly analysed and stated in the essay. However, the question of how technology influences early childhood development has been answered in this paper.


References

3.       The Impact of Technology on Child Sensory and Motor Development by Cris Rowan, OTR
4.       Technology and Early Child Development Mary Eming Young Senior Public Health Specialist, The World Bank


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