Exposure to a digital age is, of course, strenuous on us all. From exposure to social
media and cyber-spaces to feeling like your eyes have turned square from a day
spent binge-watching a show. Parenting in the digital age, I am sure, is particularly
difficult. Giving a child a phone and knowing they, if without certain parental
restrictions, could access the whole world. Or giving a child a tablet to watch
something suddenly becomes all they ask for. I’ve often seen tablets or phones sit
comfortably in a child’s hands in their pushchair, or young children I know complete
their homework on online platforms, and its hard not to wonder if the early exposure
of screens is more damaging to young children than it is good.
Now, I am certainly not one to evaluate or decide the best parenting tactics, or in any
way claim that allowing a child considerable access to a screen is bad parenting in
any way. I, as a childless, twenty-year-old university student, must have little to
speak on parenting in comparison to others. But, in light of recent research,
conversations, and the constant growth of us all becoming reliant on phones in
everyday life, naturally should be making us wonder what that is doing to our
youngest generations, those who know no different.
In recent conversations with my friends, we spoke of how our generation (early to
mid 2000-babies, though I’m sure those younger than us too) are the last generation
to not have screen-centred upbringings. We were sat on the edge of two different
eras if you will. We remember a time before constant connectivity, but our older
childhood years were well versed with the online world. I received my first phone the
summer before starting secondary school, many of my friends too, the first form of
independence where, as pre-teens, we may need to contact family or friends whilst
out. Of course, Snapchat and Instagram was downloaded soon after, but my early
childhood days were far from indoctrinated from anything trending, streaming or
posted.
From our generation onwards, it seems, the transitional period of learning about
screens has faded and we are in a full swing of a digital age. So when do young
children or even toddlers first become exposed to screens, or become reliant on
screens? When I was first given my phone (an iPhone 5 by the way), it was my most
prized possession, and I quite naturally became obsessed with messaging my
friends and playing games that wasted my storage.
It seems that same enjoyment of screens happens soon after being exposed to one,
but that is happening earlier and earlier. According to the American research
organisation Pew, 68% of parents whose children are twelve and under say they use
a tablet and 61% say they use a smartphone. Perhaps more astonishingly, 38% of parents of
under-twos said their child uses or interacts with a smartphone and 8% of under-fives have
their own smartphone.
Lucy Fox, Assistant Headteacher and Head of Primary at a school in Coventry, told
The Guardian that many children do not know how to hold a pencil and know only
how to speak very few words, which she claims is from an early exposure to
screens. “We notice a lot of children will cut pieces of cardboard out and make a
mobile phone or tablet, or an Xbox controller. That’s what they know.”
The Guardian also reports of a school in Hampshire, where a reception teacher says
that with the emergence of screens in everyday life has led to children to becoming
more impatient and frustrated when activities are not instant and seamless. But
these are manners we learn in our early years, so how will this affect children later
on in childhood when children are given less instantaneous attention as they
naturally become less reliant?
This teacher also notes that “their [reception-aged children] hand-eye coordination
isn’t very good, and they find puzzles difficult. Doing a puzzle on an iPad, you just
need to hold and move it on the screen. They get really frustrated and I feel like
there are certain connections the brain is not making anymore.”
If children are lacking the opportunity to explore creativity or their imagination, where
do their minds go? Do they not go beyond the screen they are passively mesmerised
with? Children’s TV shows and channels are of course designed in ways to engage
children and expose them to new concepts, words and ideas they will be
experiencing for the first time. But having to think, imagine and create are
foundational building blocks one cannot replace when it comes to child development.
It’s funny, how it’s a known fact that the late Steve Jobs, the inventor of Apple, did
not let his children use the iPad upon its release. Johnny Taylor, art director at the
games company, Mind Candy, which makes Moshi Monsters and World Of Warriors,
makes comment that ‘technology is part of [his children’s] life, and as a parent I have
to make sure that other things are just as important, like going out, exercising,
drawing and being creative.” However, as Taylor states, much of his young children’s
homework involves being completed on a digital device.
Alongside the findings of the effects of screen time on young children, teachers have
often found that there is a considerate shift to individualism. Children playing alone
or on a device rather than talking, playing or bonding with other children. This used
to be said about children with no siblings, but maybe just a child with a screen is the
new ‘only-child syndrome’? Are teachers having to teach children to work in teams,
and how to play with one another? This surely, should have massive effects on
children’s communication and social skills alongside forming the friendships that, at
that age, are the blueprint to all relationships children then form by themselves.
But these questions of creative imagination and thinking critically are important
questions to have. In research into the effects of excessive screen time on child
development, it was found that it has been associated with lower cognitive abilities,
leading to a lower academic performance later in childhood. Language development
has also been found to be affected, as large screen exposure may be used in
replacement of quality interactions between a child and their caregiver. Similarly,
sleep disturbances are bound to occur (just like for everyone) if a screen is used
before bed, however replacing outside play with sitting at a screen may lead to
socio-emotional consequences like obesity, depression or anxiety.
With technology, despite overtaking and hard to comprehend is in fact, still
developing, all this research still falls short of knowing for definite the effects of
screens in any age, however especially young children. For better or worse, we are
moving into a techno-reliant society, and these young minds are living in response to
this sociological change. Perhaps I am nostalgic for an easier, more care-free time of
childhood days, however there seems a balance between screens and growing up
only semi-dependent from one needs to be found. So children can talk, write, create,
play and enjoy a period of disconnect to the world they will, when time, join.