By Occupying Their
Time With Entertainment Technology, Children Are Losing a Significant Amount of
Interpersonal Interactions.
According to The Future of Children journal by Princeton University,
more than 20% of children between the ages of 8 and 18 report having a computer
in their bedroom. This early relationship between children and technology has raised
many concerns. Many studies have shown that the result of children interacting
with technology too frequently is children losing creativity and the ability to
determine the emotions of other people.
It is during the childhood years that people start building
the foundation of their social skills. Because personal interactions are
crucial in gaining social competence, there have been many concerns about
children forming “electronic friendships
” with computers and other entertainment technologies. Creating
“electronic friendships” arguably rob “children of time for other social
activities” and interfere “with the development and maintenance of
friendships”.
According to Jacquelyn Gross, a graduate research assistant in developmental psychology at the University of Maryland, children need interpersonal interaction in order to learn. For example, when learning a new language, it is most effective to teach children through personal lessons rather than lessons on a television. Being highly social beings, children who play more with technology are at risk of not receiving the necessary social skills.
According to Jacquelyn Gross, a graduate research assistant in developmental psychology at the University of Maryland, children need interpersonal interaction in order to learn. For example, when learning a new language, it is most effective to teach children through personal lessons rather than lessons on a television. Being highly social beings, children who play more with technology are at risk of not receiving the necessary social skills.
Technological activity in children has increased greatly
overtime, and is continuing to increase at a rapid rate. According to a study in 1999, parents reported that their "children between ages 2
and 17 with access to home computers and video games spent an average of 4
hours 48 minutes per day with screen time”. Screen time is comprised of time
spent watching TV, playing games consoles, using a mobile, computer or tablet. Another
national survey also reported that children of ages 2 to 18 has an average
screen time of 4 hours and 19 minutes per day, excluding computer use for
schoolwork.
The time spent with technologically showed vary greatly by
age; children between the ages 2 and 7 spent about 2 to 3 hours per day in
front of a screen while children between the ages 8 and 13 spent nearly 6 hours
per day in front of a screen. This increasing amount of time spent between
children and entertainment technology decreases the amount of time children
spend on organized sports and other social activities. As a result, the physical
and social well being of children is degraded.
This hypothesis has been further supported by a study published
in the journal, Computers in Human Behavior. The results of this study found
that sixth-graders who went five days without exposure to technology were
significantly better at reading human emotions than kids who had regular access
to phones, televisions and computers.
Children growing up now in this day of age will never have known
of a time without the Internet. This impressive fact undoubtedly creates a
difference in how the future generations are raised and therefore, how they
will behave socially.
Over The
Past Decade, Researchers Have Found The Creativity of Children Decreased
Significantly.
Child development relies highly on play. It has been known for decades
through theories and research that children “learn though direct play and
hands-on experiences with people, with materials, and in nature”. As Gross claims, using technology hinders children's abilities to create their own content and therefore hinders their chances to get creative. By finding entertainment through technology rather than finding entertainment through their own imagination, they have no reasons to get creative.
Creativity in children is created when they physically manipulate
objects and exercise all their senses. Interaction with the 3-dimensional world
is needed to maximize children’s learning and brain development. When children
are constantly limited to the 2-dimensional worlds on their screens, they are
lacking the needed resources to expand their creativity.
As a result of the increasing technological activity in children,
there has been a significant decrease in creativity amount children,
particularly from kindergarten through sixth grade. The researchers who reached
these findings have been tracking the creativity of children for 50 years and
explain that the decline is due to children’s decline in play.
As other researchers are finding that children’s creativity have
dropped significantly, Kyung Hee Kim, a creativity researcher at the College of
William and Mary, believes that the drop in creativity is associated with kids being reliant on electronic entertainment. Kim’s study tested back to the
1970’s and up to 2010.
He found that since 1990, children’s ability to create unique and
unusual ideas has abated. He also found that children have been losing sense of
humor, imagination, and ability to elaborate on ideas. Kim, who analyzed test
scores of 300,000 adults and children, found that Americans' scores on measures of idea quality fell 3.7%
from 1990 to 2008. Their scores on idea quantity fell 7% during the same
period.
By becoming a less creative
population, we are becoming less capable of solving big problems, developing breakthrough products and creating artistic
works. To stop the decline in creativity for future generations to come, we
must not only teach them to rely less on technology but also ourselves.
With Knowledge That
Too Much Screen-Time Affects the Social Skills of Children, Teachers and
Parents Must Monitor Their Children’s Use of Technology
Technology is not a completely negative item, but because
excessive usage of media is correlated with negative behavioral issues such as
decreasing interpersonal relationships and creativity, it is necessary to
create a “media diet” for children.
Children's behavior relies greatly on the behavior they witness from other people and modeling is a powerful. Gross claims that if parents and teachers want to limit their children's use of technology, they are going to have to limit themselves from technology in front of their children. Parents and teachers need to spend more time personally interacting with their children instead of occupying them with technology in order to create necessary social skills for their children.
Face to face interaction was and continues to be crucial in our evolution as species. So making sure children, and even adults, have enough social interaction is pertinent in maintaining a society of competent social beings. Obviously by drastically reducing face-to-face interaction, our social skills get reduced as well.
Babies need face-to-face interaction and need to speak with
parents when learning about human interaction. The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned
for decades that screen time needs to be limited for children. The AAP’s most
recent prescription claimed that entertainment screen time “should be limited
to two hours a day for children ages 3-18 and, for 2-year-olds and younger, none
at all”.
According to Marjorie Hogan, co-author of the AAP policy, digital
media is not completely harmful and can be quite beneficial when used
appropriately. However, it is necessary “to teach children how to make good
choices around it, how to limit it” so it is not replacing the other needed physical
activities that play a crucial role in child development.
