This is not a very rigorous article. It's a series of observations/opinions of one particular expert who's worked with one particular set of kids. Not useless anecdotes, but anecdotes nonetheless.
That being said, I think there's some truth in there. I'm very dubious of the endless technology moral panic that's cycled through parenting ever since the invention of the sharpened stick. ("In my day we just bashed the gazelles with a blunt stick. These kids today have no character") Nevertheless, I tend to agree that the human mind needs unstructured periods of boredom and social interaction to thrive, and that parents are too quick to mollify their kids with entertainments instead of helping them learn to occupy themselves. Also, kids should be able to play outside, away from parental supervision.
I'm not sure about that. I was raised with the opportunity to do stuff outside with other kids and all that but it felt boring to me. Particularly it bugged me how they seemed to not stay on one thing for long or not stick to the structure of whatever we were doing. If it was up to me what to do I came up blank and just walked around until I was allowed to go back in - I couldn't think of anything interesting to do besides sometimes try to imitate stuff from the video games. In contrast at that age I found video games like Spyro the Dragon or Crash Bandicoot much more interesting and fulfilling due to how they were consistent and had more tangible rewards. I was also greatly interested in computers but didn't get one until third grade. I have doubts random physical meandering is better than technology for kids.
This is the reason why I’m very restrictive with my kids access to any digital devices. Not because they are inherently bad, but because they take valuable time where they should be out playing in nature, practicing social interactions with other kids, learn to play music, or read books.
Given normal circumstance(no mental illness etc), kids get bored by those devices too, as with information and learning. They adapt and learn how to use the tools to meet their will.
I think the magic ingrediences here is love, hugs, attention (when they seek it) and time is what truly matters. That will guide down the slippery slope they will take regardless. If the kids want to play, learn from it and can let it go without having problem with it, it should ok.
Anyway it's something they need to learn since most things in life will be tied to electronic devices.
What kids need is actual parents that provide structure, a good home and learning experiences, not constant 24/7 entertainment.
Perhaps this is why i see so many parents delegate their responsibilities to their ipads and let their kids drool while watching entertainment instead of interacting with them and parenting them.
Disclaimer: father of two who don't need tech crap or constant entertainment to be happy.
I think we as society have lost the ability to give the kids a creative space, that used to be a mile away from homes where they can play in the sand and bushes and water, and just be kids, without adult supervision. Video games let kids experience creation. Video games are satisfying an evolutionary need.
I think nautil.us should write an article on positive effects of mobile phone connectivity. The snobs are looking down on that just like they are on video games.
Growing up we definitely couldn't play on the streets, since cars were everywhere, sports and entertainment were far away and expensive and schools we a toxic social environment.
Computers got relatively cheap (we didn't own the latest and greatest) and provided quite a lot of fun. I'd probably do much worse if I avoided them.
Maybe concerned parents would do better if they lobbied communities to provide better environments for children - more opportunities for fun, safer and less controlling.
The fact that parents have had somewhat silly concerns about past technologies does not discount current concerns.
I truly believe that the new crop of "psychologically optimized" mobile games and apps have crossed a line in this regard. Books, movies, comics etc were of course designed to be appealing and enjoyable, but were not specifically designed to consume as much of your time as they possibly could.
.. or I'll be arrested for not supervising them every minute they're outside.
See, I think a lot of parents share concerns like this (I have two myself but they're not quite at the right age) yet I don't think the actual laws have changed (?) so I wonder how fair it is.
I think a key part of the problem, if it's one, is that it's so easy to keep children entertained in the house nowadays and it's therefore easier to do that than let them "risk" being outdoors.
As a geek, if I hadn't had lots of friends, I could have easily stayed in the house playing on my computer all day in the 90s, but most of my friends didn't have such pursuits so had to go outside to alleviate their boredom. And.. all kids have become geeks now (in a sense we may have understood it in the early/mid 90s). Even the popular kid can stay glued to their cellphone or computer on Facebook or playing games for hours every evening without it seeming odd in 2013.
And if they can do that and stay safe in their own homes.. it must be tempting to many parents to let them do that.
You're right about kids: they spend much of their free time exploring and playing like they're hard wired to do it.
I think our 19th-century-style schools are the problem: we drum information and behaviours into kids until they forget how to be independent. All this time wasted sitting at a desk in a classroom means they might miss out on the chance to develop a passion for something, something that they would fill their free time with later in life. And then we're surprised that people just want to watch netflix.
I would rather my children didn't use something like this. Purely because it's a waste of time. Children socialise just fine at the local park and school.
While at home they need down time and time to be bored. It's an essential element of developing your own personality.
They've got 400 years of books to read as well, the sooner they start on that the sooner they will finish.
Perhaps there is a sort of knee-jerk retro-hippie back-to-the-basics trend happening nowadays. But the choice to limit children's exposure to electronic gadgets really isn't arbitrary anywhere I've seen it.
It's more typically reasoned, even painstakingly thought-out choice. One made based on insufficient information, yes, but also with limited time to make the decision.
For example, it is obvious to me from direct observation of my own kids that a box of polished wooden blocks leads to higher-quality play than any of the electronic mainstream crap that they've gotten as gifts: the creative process of building, non-predetermined outcomes, some thinking required, trial-and-error is rewarded, obvious self-satisfaction (and alternatively, frustration), etc.
Likewise, I could provide a litany of reasons why I think spending 30 minutes with a paper coloring or drawing book is an unambiguously better activity for my kids than an unrestricted iPad (which == YouTube, nearly 100% of the time).
An iPad locked to one of the drawing programs — that's pretty different. Once they've mastered crayons and pens on paper, I'll let them do that pretty much as long as they want to.
These decisions might not all have "solid foundations" — perhaps I'm wrong in some of my assumptions. But they also aren't "arbitrary". There is reasoning behind them, even if the reasoning may not be totally correct, and the data is necessarily incomplete.
As a parent, and an introvert, I'm not convinced that kids (or anyone, for that matter) absolutely need social interaction all the time. If a parent/adult were to teach the kids all the time, in some ways, they're interfering with the child learning to learn.
Surely there is a middle ground between tablet parenting and helicopter parenting.
Fact is just like their parents, kids are tremendously connected these days, so there's a massive networking effect in the cohort. There's much less outdoor/social activities among kids than there were couple decades ago, simply because there's noone playing outside. Yes we can argue that no screen can replace human interaction fully but it does replace quite a bit of it.
We often hear this parents not doing their jobs sentiment over and over, either from people who have no kids or had them prior to smartphone era. Do you often find yourself spending a whole evening with a laptop or tablet? Checking facebook on your phone compulsively? Well same thing with kids. Sure I could just seize my son's devices, but then what? Push him out to the empty street? Try to be his playmate until he's 18? Because it's not just your kid, the whole social interaction fabric went the way of Great Barrier Reef.
Sure no technology can substitute parenting; most parents we know do the expected job of taking the kids for activities, courses, helping with homework etc. But you can't (and shouldn't) hover over your kids all the time. If this project can convert any of the social media/gaming time to at least something useful, it is priceless.
I think the more important thing is fostering your children to have other interests - when the electronics are given just to make a kid shut up it can eventually become their "real" parents. When parents are active and make an effort to show their children other activities and find what they're interested in, the electronics won't be as enticing.
Maybe that requires a child having some built in proclivity towards some manner of creative expression or physical activity, who knows.
> So a kid will always prefer to use a tablet than visit their fun friends or do something exciting?
I'm sure it varies from kid to kid, but my (now) 15 year-old always preferred visiting friends over generally unrestricted access to XBox or other electronic entertainments. It wasn't even close. Hell, even a bike ride or "adventure" with mom or dad was preferable, possibly because there would be a playground, treat, or other fun along the way.
Now that they're older, mom and dad don't have as much say, but most online time is spent with friends, but getting together IRL still trumps being online. Again, we try to encourage this by always saying "yes" to any remotely reasonable request to drive them somewhere, have some cash to hang out downtown, etc.
Is there a corresponding decline in the quality of adult playtime? Is the always connected 24/7 on call lifestyle of parents the root cause? I have to imagine there is some hypocrisy in living that lifestyle and expecting your kids to do otherwise. What about taking electronics away from the parents first?
That being said, I think there's some truth in there. I'm very dubious of the endless technology moral panic that's cycled through parenting ever since the invention of the sharpened stick. ("In my day we just bashed the gazelles with a blunt stick. These kids today have no character") Nevertheless, I tend to agree that the human mind needs unstructured periods of boredom and social interaction to thrive, and that parents are too quick to mollify their kids with entertainments instead of helping them learn to occupy themselves. Also, kids should be able to play outside, away from parental supervision.
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