Technology has increasingly integrated into children’s day-to-day lives. All that children born between 1995 and 2012 – Gen Z/iGen – know is a life with technology in it. However, because of our dependency on technology today, I feel as though it is important to learn and be aware of how it may be impacting children during their most malleable and crucial developmental years. Humans are born with embryonic brains that need caregivers to foster these synaptic connections and further brain-building. Some connections are repeatedly reinforced and become more ingrained in a baby’s mind while the others that are not used as much are severed (Staff, Take Care). Since parents are now able to use technology as a parenting tool for raising their kids whether it be to educate, occupy, or entertain, the effects may be detrimental or beneficial – or not have any effect at all – depending on how it is used.
I picked this topic because I remember my parents feeling conflicted with how much technology I should or could use and when to give me a phone or let me play video games. I was not allowed to watch television during the day, nor did I have much access to video games. I lived vicariously through my older brother who was allowed to use more technology than me. Howerver, he did not have a phone until high school because it was simply not necessary at the time. My life was mostly off of screens until I reached the age of 8 or so, and I am very thankful for that. At the time, I did not understand why they felt so hesitant because these applications were fun and the television shows seemed harmless and kept me out of trouble. Still, they stood firm in their decisions and although we are not yet completely sure of technology’s positive/negative/neutral impacts, I am glad that I valued playtime, reading, and face-to-face time over playing with a phone or watching a show.
Dr. Michael Rich, director of Center on Media and Child Health and Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders, states that baby’s brains are elastic and that the first three years are critical for language and overall brain development. In the first nine months, a child understands sounds and how they should be interpreted. However, children who spent more time on screen instead of talking suffered in their language development. Face-to-face interaction has been proven to be more meaningful than talking over the screen because it can be hard for a young child to understand that the sound they hear from a screen belongs to a person (Staff, Take Care).
Florida Tech found that effects of technology on child development might include its tendency to harm attention spans, reduce of self-soothing and self-regulation, increase aggression, stagnate physical activity, hurt school performance, limit interpersonal interactions, affect emotional development, help visual-spatial awareness, enhance multitasking skills, and aid learning (“How Technology Affects Child Development.”)
Too much or poor quality screen time was also linked to obesity, irregular sleep schedules and shorter duration of sleep, behavioral problems, loss of social skills, violence, and less time for play (“Tips to Manage Kids’ Screen Time.”) It is important to remember, though, that the outcomes of screen time are more so correlated to what type of technology is consumed, how much of it is consumed, and for how long, rather than simply just being ‘bad’ for child development. Additionally, in some cases technology use has no effect at all on cognitive abilities (Bavelier, Daphne, et al.)
One famous research study, “The Mozart Effect”, once claimed that listening to Mozart music directly correlated to higher IQ test scores. The following research found that up-tempo music, in general, temporarily enhances IQ tests and increases arousal and mood. Research on “Baby DVDs” – media that is designed to enhance the cognitive capabilities of infants/toddlers – showed that they actually produce no changes in cognitive development and decrease the pace of language development after an hour of daily viewing or listening (Bavelier, Daphne, et al.) Because of studies like these, one cannot completely generalize the impacts of technology claiming that it is the direct causation of lowered development and cognitive abilities. In fact, there are many factors that can affect and alter a child’s development and any temporary effect of technology use is unlikely to be specific to technology.
Educational media may still be helpful for child development. Exposure to shows like “Sesame Street” when children are between the ages of two and a half and five seem to promote language literacy and early math skills, as well as produce positive outcomes like school readiness, vocabulary size, and numeracy skills. “Blue’s Clues”, “Dora the Explorer”, and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” are all also correlated to a greater vocabulary and higher expressive language skills in children. Overall, when the show contains child-directed speech, elicitation of responses, object labeling, storybook-like framework, and engaging material, media can have positive effects for young children. “Teletubbies” tends to be associated with a decrease in vocabulary and expressive language skills (Bavelier, Daphne, et al.), so it is deemed important for parents/guardians to look out for the content that their young ones are watching to ensure that it is meaningful, yet fun.
In the COVID-19 era, children (98.5% of students worldwide) rapidly switched from face-to-face learning to digital classrooms and parents quickly rejected the new style of learning. Their reasoning included their feelings of the shortcomings of online learning, young children’s inadequate self-regulation, lack of time and professional knowledge supporting children’s online learning, the time and professional knowledge required from parents, and the suffering and hardship they were experiencing due to COVID. While some scholars thought that young children should not participate in online learning because of the claim that it cannot prepare them socially and emotionally for school and harm their health and growth, other scholars thought that this new form of learning could help the understanding of abstract concepts. Additionally, students could engage in collaborative learning, reasoning, and problem solving activities (Dong, Chuanmei, et al.) COVID-19 changed the meaning of education and may be very telling of the impacts that the dependency on technology for learning and human interaction could have on child development in the future.
The American Academy of Pediatricians discourages media use by children younger than 18-24 months and encourages that children between the ages of 2 and 5 limit their screen time to one hour a day of high-quality programming. What does quality screen time mean? Parents and/or guardians can gauge the meaning for their young children. They should preview programs before the child views/plays them, look for interactive options, use parental controls to block or filter internet content, ensure the child is nearby to supervise his/her activities online, ask the child what programs s/he played with or watched during the day, and talk about what they are watching throughout (Dong, Chuanmei, et al.). Having a parent present while a child views their technology may bring more meaning and understanding to their media use, and would help guarantee a healthy, but limited, relationship with technology.
At the conclusion of my research, I decided to interview my mom to get her thoughts on her choices with raising me in a developing technological age.
“I want to say the prevailing concerns were confidentiality – somebody being able to tap in and find out about your information and find out about you so that scared me – and the other piece was… you know people were saying kids were so focused on the technology that, i.e. the DS for instance, that they spent more time on that to the exclusion of getting out and getting exercise and you know just being well-rounded. Getting interested in things and reading books, and so that was my concern. So I really infiltrated the use of those electronic devices with a lot of reading and doing things and going places to learn about things”
Overall, technology is not completely to blame for stunts to child development, but it can have some slight impacts depending on how it is used and how much it is used. However, sometimes there are no reported impacts. The quality of use of technology by the child and possible positive or negative consequences falls on the parent/guardian to manage. It is imperative for them to be involved in their child’s media use – especially as technology infiltrates into our society and culture.
WORKS CITED:
Bavelier, Daphne, et al. “Children, Wired: for Better and for Worse.” Neuron, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 9 Sept. 2010, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170902/.
“How Technology Affects Child Development.” Floridatechonline.com, www.floridatechonline.com/blog/psychology/how-technology-affects-child-development/.
Staff, Take Care. “Technology’s Impact on Childhood Brain, Language Development.” WRVO Public Media, www.wrvo.org/post/technologys-impact-childhood-brain-language-development.
Dong, Chuanmei, et al. “Young Children’s Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic: Chinese Parents’ Beliefs and Attitudes.” Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier Ltd., Nov. 2020, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7476883/.
“Tips to Manage Kids’ Screen Time.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 20 June 2019, www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/childrens-health/in-depth/screen-time/art-20047952.
