This week’s Question: A new study from Common Sense Media shows that infants and toddlers spend twice as much time with screen media as they do with books. While television is still the dominant media device in most young children’s lives, the study, based on responses of more than 1,300 parents, found that more than 38 percent of kids under 8 years old have used a smartphone, video iPod, or iPad.
What do you think? Are you concerned that children are spending more time than ever in front of screens?
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Yes – Kids need to play outside more. There is too much TV, too much video games and too much radiation from computer screens. Child obesity is getting worse. Instead of giving your kid an IPad, consider a football.
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I’m concerned that parents don’t let their children roam free more. As a child in the 1950′s it was the norm for Mom to open the door and say go out and play and be back for supper. The modern world is not less safe than the world of the 1950′s and yet parents now believe that there is a significant chance of their child being abducted if they aren’t continuously supervised. This leads to children locked up in houses and young adults with little understanding of social interactions and the consequences of their own actions.
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The time that young children spend in front of screens can also be considered a learning experience. Kids can out perform many adults as to getting the most out of their phones, pads, and pods. The big problem is when they reach their teens. Their faces are never out of their screens. Have you ever gone to dinner with a teen with a texting device? Ever tried to talk to them? Is this the results of their early screen watching?
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Unequivocally YES!!!!! And not enough exercise!!!!
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I am concerned for children especially, but for adults, too. I wonder whether I might be less near-sighted if I could have spent more time working and playing in the great outdoors instead of all these years focused on a screen less than three feet from my eyes.
And Thanksgiving sure can be boring with all the little cousins, nieces, and nephews with their eyes glued to a handheld gadget with a screen instead of running, laughing, and throwing a football outside.
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While there is a measure of benefit in terms of learning and knowledge enhancement, (for both the young and adults), it seems that things always evolve to the extremes. Moderation in all things.
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Older generations usually worry about the things their generation didn’t have when they were younger. Somehow we all seem to work through it. It does change us, but it’s how we use our experiences that matters. I’m very happy to have had my youth in the era of automobiles, airplanes and electronic communications.
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Up to a point screen time can be useful learning. Most young are more skilled at modern electronic gadgets than we older people. Beyond that point, when screen time becomes pure entertainment, other activities shold be insisted upon. When our children were coming along in the ’70s we insisted they become skilled at he four functions/tables. Their school said hand calculators had replaced this need! When in my retirement I taught a group of nursing students their math in a local community college, would you believe, the first chapter was “learning the four functions!” Balance is the right approach. Yes, let children spend screen time as long as it is constructive. Then go outdoors for helthful exercise play and indoors for other forms of activity such as reading, etc.
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No, I am not concerned. Certainly kids and adults need to spend time outdoors, but every generation has felt kids are going to hell one way or another – spending too much time with books, or whatever. Every well-paid job these days requires operating a screen, better get good at it while you’re young.
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Reading is fundamental to learning in the human brain. The pathways exercised for short and long term memory and the emotional center connection with those functions means that reading language enforces learning, whether it be on a screen or a printed paper. The problem with too much screen time is that the content is lacking for learning for young kids. too many distractions emotional and otherwise. Lots of facts and knowledge presented through video, but no grasp or wisdom. Too many shortcuts taken. Anyone born after 1980 will take longer to arrive at a level of their ancestors at a similar age, as already seen in our society.
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Letters to the Editor, Wall Street Journal Nov.15 2011 from Dr. Donald Shiffrin, MD., Bellview, Wa. says that digital screens are causing great collateral damage to children because of lack of sleep.
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While young adults can text and manipulate video games at blinding speed, employers must waste valuable time and resources teaching them the most basic life-functioning skills. I was at a client’s business last week and watched a kid in his late twenties spend several seconds waving his hands under a sink faucet before giving up in disgust when no water came out, I had to show him how to operate the hands-free foot pedal. A twenty-something female employee was tasked with adding new data sheets in the right-to-know book so as to maintain proper alpha-numeric order. The manager decided to check when more than an hour passed and the employee had not reported completion of the task, employee claimed it was taking time to complete because she had to type the data sheet names into the computer so they could be alphabetized. Employee further complained, “These new papers don’t have the little holes for the metal things” (three-ring binder). Most noteworthy is that both of these employees have completed two years of college and can recite from memory the names and details of most every television and movie star.
I’m all for technology but not at the expense of our youth becoming life-illiterate.
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Technological advances particularly in the area of entertainment is taking
its toll from the exploration and inqusitive potentials of of our young
generation. With this trend the future of science and technology aside
entertainment is uncertain.
Strange enough Children and youth are not able to carryout simple arithmetic summations mentally without the aid of a calculator. but asked to mention names of artists and various entertainment stars, they would
easily without effort -
Yes I am concerned that people (including the young people) are spending so much time looking at screens. Some current research indicates the detrimental affects to the heart when you sit for hours at a computer terminal. I think long term some ill affects will be found associated with the human eyes.
I think we will see some slight physical changes in the younger children. It may be in eye changes; or perhaps because of the hours of bent elbow- neck down positions there will be difficulty in some arm-shoulder-neck motions, but that is another issue.
Yes I am concerned that children are spending too much time looking at screens. The concern is not only from the physical aspects, but also the perspective of what is presented on the screen. There is also some concern because the time veiwing the screen means time not spent learing about the other aspects of living, whatever you think these may be. -
The world is changing, and screen time is how the new generation will spend most of it’s time. The question should be if we are providing them with informational and helpful videos and games for them to enjoy, and sadly I think we all know the answer to that question.
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Yes and no. I am not concerned about the fact they are spending time looking at a screen. I am concerned about the content they are engaging on that screen.
Parents should play more of a role in their child’s learning and entertainment. The screen is not a babysitter, it is a tool. If the child is wasting time in front of a screen, then blame the parent for not teaching the child how to effectively use the screen better.
When my children are old enough for technology, I will only purchase devices I can moderate physically and through software.
I am concerned about the social engineering and lack of privacy for minors using technology. We are subjecting children to technology design specifically to hook them.
Sadly, many people measure self worth by who they know and the amount of friends they have. Almost all of these online time sinks involve a few key elements to get people hooked. They include: friends list, chat type messaging, games, and blogs. Some site are very successful because the have designed a site that appeals to many people. The people get trapped and almost addicted to the contents of the site. Certain features provide a gratifying effect. Operand conditioning is on the side of the content provider.
Many people choose not to go out in the real world and get their gratification. It is much easier to sit in a chair or a bed and get gratification from the content on their screen.
The simple truth: Technology will change again. Screens might not be around for long. Exercise alone wont lead to a healthy life. Gain lots of experience doing worthless tasks and your experience will be worthless. People forgot how to invest in themselves.
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Screens are a subset of a wider problem. Is technology making us less intelligent? People I know; educated people; can’t figure an approximate 15% tip in their head without consulting their smart phone calculator. I have come across engineers who cannot read blueprints because they weren’t created in a CAD program. Schools today are just teaching kids to print words instead of freehand writing. The skill of hand writing is being lost to our youth. Mechanics can’t diagnose piston slap by listening to the engine or make a fault diagnosis without a fault code from their PC. The debt equity market spiraled out of control because no one understood how the software which created the risk management limits actually worked. An oil rig sank in the North Sea because it was designed using flawed finite element analysis software and no one bothered to do a rough hand calculation to check it. A man stood at the sink – his hands under the water faucet without using the foot pedal while a lady used an excel spreadsheet to place words in alphabetical order rather than doing it in her head. Kids are more inclined to watch a YouTube video showing them how to make a tree-house rather than climbing a tree and making a tree house. I have known some kids who think food comes from the grocery store without further thought on actually where it really comes from. Maybe I shouldn’t complain. When the asteroid hits there will be more food for me and my lineage
If all of our problems are solved for us by technology do we not lose our ability to solve problems?-
Kieran, I do not believe that technology is making us less intelligent. Technology is a tool. It is the type of technology that is making us less intelligent. If you were a business owner and you had to choose between (2) options which one would you pick? A: Hiring a highly skilled person at a high price. B: Hiring a not so skilled person and buying a device to theoretically fill their void in skill. Most business owners choose “B”. First off, the device is classified as an asset and can be depreciated on their financial statements. Also, the not so skilled person is cheaper to acquire. The owner in this case doesn’t want to be stuck with a small pool of people to choose from to fill this role. They want to open up the pool of people capable of performing the role by lowering the requirements in skill. Owners are using the laws of supply and demand to lower their overhead costs.
The bottom line is that most businesses want their people to be valuable (to them) not marketable to others. People with real skills are marketable.
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Any coach, any manager, any team or project leader, and any engineer worth his salt will tell you that effective communication skills are vital to accomplishing anything more complicated than chewing gum. I have observed teens sitting next to each other, texting each other on their electronic crutches, but they cannot hold a meaningful face to face conversation. My own son – now grown but certainly a member of the present electronics-savvy generation – will happily text me on his cell phone, but will rarely actually use it to hold an actual verbal conversation. I fear we are seeing the emergence of a generation that is severely hampered in their basic communication skills. That can’t be good.
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Screens are the medium for dispersing information today and can hardly be of more concern than other technical innovations or evolutionary change. The things to be concerned about is the content on those screens, how electronic devices are used, and how we teach kids about ‘experiencing things’ vs. leveraging current technologies.
Discipline:
The content available to children (and adults) has grown increasingly diverse and polarizing at the same time which makes our jobs to select and filter content for children much more challenging. Also of concern is the amount of control afforded us, or the lack of discipline we have to exert control over whether to use technology (devices with screens) or put boundaries on what is appropriate to see on a screen.It’s not about what kids prefer to do, but what parents allow them to do and how they educate them on how to make smart choices.
Awareness:
Technologies evolve and society sometimes struggles to keep up. In the case of children (I have a 6 year old daughter), even though I am aware that more and more time is spent in front of screens, that does not imply they are always passively watching television or not learning. My wife and I work hard to engage my daughter in both technology-based and non-technology-based activities (Anyone for a game of cards? No, I mean real playing cards. Or, how about playing together instead of watching TV?).This is the key–it’s not the technology at the heart of the problem, but how the technology is used. Using a TV as a way to occupy the kids while mom and dad check out their Farmville progress or play WoW, well, one can argue that the technology is a problem (as a distraction or scapegoat), and one can also argue that the discipline to use technologies appropriately is, in some cases, missing.
Balance:
I grew up with TV constantly around and today I work in front of a set of monitors all day, then go home to read news, the web and books using my laptop, tablet or other devices. Still, when it’s time to read with my daughter or practice words and numbers, I prefer “old-school” books and paper over a Kindle and electronic flash cards. Does the Kindle or electronic devices have a role in learning? Absolutely! But it is important to expose our kids to various avenues for learning and entertainment. Just as it would make it tough on kids to live in exclusion of technology then later to be immersed in it, the reverse is also non-ideal.Discipline, awareness and balance–without these there is much more to be concerned about than the technologies around us today or those that will be her in 5, 10, 15 years.
_bruce b
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Well said!!
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I support technology and the fact that kids will, and should, use what is available. However I feel that they do spend to much time in front of something that has a screen. Playing outside, building things, and just enjoying fresh air and social interaction are needed as well to make them a more well rounded person. Just like a diet, having a ballance between all of the these activities is the healthiest solution. Personally I try to make a good ballance for my child, and more times than not I am doing the non-screen activities as well so it makes it easy for my child to wak away from the electronic device.
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If the content of the screen interactions reduces intellectual effort to little more than physical eye hand co-oridination as the sum total gain of the screen interactions then certainly it will do more harm than good that so much time is being spent in these interactions.
If real (as in useful) communication and learning skills are being achieved or one’s knowledge base is increased in a manner that can prove useful to the society at large then there is no real concern.
Worrying about whether or not one’s physical health is affected by this behavior comes down to the choice of the individual. Maintaining good physical health has a great deal more to do with choice than with whether or not we use electronic media.
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Since the cell both operates and behaves like a complex of digital computing automata functions, I hyptohesize that there is a form of biological operating system. However, determining what would compose such a system is currently beyond us. It would be like looking at the machine code on a hard drive and trying to reverse engineer the windows operating system based solely on a string of ones and zeros.
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Can we? yes.
Should we? no. -
Srinivas J,
Is this another Burzynski scenario?
By the way, this thread is actually last weeks thread concerning children and screen time. Looks like NTB didn’t link it correctly.
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CW,
Yes, I am afraid that the Dr. Burzynski scenario will be increasingly repeated as long as there is an FDA with any enforcement powers.
And I hope NASA is better at keeping their threads straight than NTB.
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