Kylian Cyr - Project #1 Research Paper

   

Too Young for Technology?

Critics in today’s society often joke about how it seems every child has, and is attached to, a smartphone. While most dismiss this as something to laugh about, a recent study by Common Sense Media shows that 38 percent of children below the age of two-years-old have used a smartphone, up from 10 percent two years ago (O’Connor). With the dramatic increase in usage of smartphones amongst children, both parents and psychologists worry over the effects that these technologies could have on children. As their popularity grows, smartphones are integrated into both the early learning environment and home life. Children are surrounded by smartphones regardless of where they are. Various studies give different results on the actual effects of smartphones on children, but one thing is common amongst them all. Regular use of smartphones by 21st American pre-screenagers has harmful effects on brain development, which eventually leads to poor social skills; yet also accounts for increased intelligence.

Children are living in the world of the technology. smartfirstgraders.com

“It’s likely you’ve seen a child too young to speak in complete sentences operate his mom’s iPhone better than, well, his mom” (Brown). Technology sustains itself as an integral part of today’s Western culture and society; a world without it is unimaginable. To survive in this type of culture, Westerners adapted to a rapid wave of new and changing devices. However, children have only ever known a world of technology and thus, technology use is almost innate to them. From a very early age, children know how to use a piece of technology. Give one an electronic device and within an hour, the child will have basic knowledge on how to operate it. Fisher Price is obviously a huge believer in a child’s ability to interact with technology, as they produce the Apptivity Seat. The Apptivity Seat positions an infant so that he or she is facing a pouch where parents can place an iPad or a tablet. Parents are reportedly appalled with the product; "Babies should be entertained by looking around and by their family or caretaker, not a screen," says mother Libby Conover. Fisher Price defends itself, claiming that Apptivity is beneficial for the early development of children. (Brown). This raises a question that parents and companies alike crave to get an answer for; what are the effects of technology on children?

The Apptivity Seat acts as if it were famous magician David Copperfield, hypnotizing children. inhabitots.com

 

“The average age of social maturity in 1990 was 15; in 2012 it was 17. The cited cause for the increase was an increase in protective parenting and the increase in personal electronics” (Bowden). Having a personal device like a smartphone allows a person to escape any social situation; instead of having face-to-face communication, one can just pull out his or her smartphone and appear busy to avoid social interactions. Unfortunately for children, parents are no different. Mother Jessica Black admits that when her daughter misbehaves in public, she gives her her smartphone to quiet her down (Bowden). Giving the girl a smartphone removes her from the social situation, which becomes a missed opportunity for social growth. Psychology professor Timothy Cavell states that “the early years of childhood are when the brain is most susceptible to suggestion and molding. Parents who use these devices as a means of escaping awkward situations are compromising their children’s ability to cope in the future” (Bowden). Children learn from their parents that smartphones are a valid way of avoiding social interaction and they copy this habit. Nina Angeli Papali agrees that smartphones are detrimental to social skills, believing that children’s desire to play with other kids is lost when they have a smartphone (Angeli Papali). She also believes that a child’s eyesight is weakened when he or she spends an excessive amount of time staring at a bright phone screen. However, this is not the only drawback of technology; brain development is affected because a child who consistently uses a smartphone is trained to switch from one task to another, causing a short attention span. Papali’s last point is that a child who is addicted to a smartphone or other piece of technology is discouraged from physical activity, causing obesity and other physical ailments.

Much like the children in Hocus Pocus, kids become enchanted by smartphone apps and withdraw from social situations. littlegothichorrors.blogspot.com

 

Not everything about smartphones is detrimental to a child. Fiona Aboud Singer recalls how her twin daughters preferred their mother’s iPhone to any other toy when they were just 6-months-old; she went on to say that they learned the alphabet by the time they were 18-months-old and they began reading by their third birthday (Kamenetz). The educational benefits of smartphones are unrivaled. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, flashcards, and educational apps are all at the finger tips of a child. Not only do they have a wealth of information at hand, but they are able to easily seek out homework help and plan schedules to help them complete their work (Jones). The benefits do not stop here; parents particularly like the idea of knowing where their child is and being able to contact them at all times, and with a smartphone, this concern nearly disappears. Parents are allowed to text their children and get a response within seconds. Many parents especially like that smartphones come with a navigation application, so that if a child is walking home from school and gets lost, he or she can easily find the way home (Jessamyn).
Yet another benefit of smartphones is that parents can treat them as prizes; when children misbehave, the phone can be taken away, but when children are doing well in school and on their best behavior, they can be treated with a smartphone. The smartphone could even be used as a form of stress relief; after long hours of school and homework, parents are often inclined to give their children a break, which often comes in the form of apps and social media, all coming on a smartphone platform (Jones).  Kamenetz even believes that smartphone applications can give children a head-start on their academic careers; “[smartphones] are tools for expression and connection, not just passive absorption.” She cites app-creator Andrew Shalit, who believes that children are using their creativity in apps to figure out puzzles and use their fine motor skills. Smartphones can even help children develop better communication skills; while they are texting, tweeting, and calling, they are expressing their ideas and thoughts to their peers. 

These two friends, despite their separation, are able to stay in communication thanks to smartphones.  zdnet.com

 

TeacherMate is a recent technology that found its niche in the classroom. Kamenetz experienced the TeacherMate firsthand when she sat in on one of first-grade teacher Kelly Flowers’ classes. Flowers explains to Kamenetz that every student uses a TeacherMate, their progress tracked by a program on Flowers’ computer. The TeacherMate combines education and games to engage students in their lessons. Flowers privately separates the children into three groups based on their reading abilities; at the beginning of the school year, she had eleven greens (who read above grade level), two yellows (who read at grade level), and seven reds (who read below grade level). After a half a year of the students playing with TeacherMate, only two students remained in the red group. “Flowers says the kids like the TeacherMate because it gives them a feeling of freedom. ‘It doesn’t feel like homework,” she says.” Children are apt to become absorbed in whatever their focus may be, and when it is a TeacherMate, the children are so entertained that they do not even realize that they are learning. Kamenetz left the classroom after learning this lesson and decided to accompany Paul Kim, the chief technology officer of Stanford University, to Mexico. “Kim is devoted to using cell phones to provide poor children with the basics of education and with access to all of the world’s information.” Mexico was no different; Kim and Kamenetz brought TeacherMates to a group of six-to-twelve-year-olds, who had no previous access to any form of technology. “Within a few minutes, with no direct instructions, they’re working in groups of three, helping one another figure out the menus in English by trial and error, playing the same math games as the students in Chicago, and reading along with stories in Spanish” (Kamenetz). The TeacherMate relates easily to children; this is why the creators of TeacherMate are working to converge the program with smartphones. A TeacherMate/smartphone collaboration gives children much more of an opportunity to learn.

The TeacherMate may be integrating itself into smartphones, but for now, it is first when it comes to education and technology; everything else comes second. photosinbox.com

 

 

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have benefitted from smartphones. “About a third to half of individuals with autism never develop sufficient natural speech to meet their daily to meet their daily communication needs. One of the most popular treatment approaches among special education is to teach children with ASD to communicate and interact with others using images” (Leroy). For this reason, smartphones and other technologies are ideal when it comes to teaching those with ASD. Utilizing smartphones is beneficial to both the educator and the student. A smartphone offers a platform to be used as a learning environment, while the images, sounds, and applications of a smartphone are ideal for a student who has ASD. The teacher is also able to monitor how a student creates messages and how often he or she does so. Smartphones offer a messaging environment that no other technological platform does, and when combined with images, makes for an optimal learning experience.

A child with disabilities can benefit enormously by using smartphones and other technology correctly. patheos.com

 

 

When survey company SodaHead polled more than 1,000 parents, 66 percent of them agreed that they should wait until a child is 16 before giving him or her a smartphone. The parents all agreed that smartphones are too dangerous to give to young children; research shows that more two-to-five-year-olds know how to play smartphone games than tie their shoes. The Federal Trade Commission is even so concerned with children’s safety on the Internet that it has proposed the Chidren’s Online Privacy Act, limiting a website’s ability to collect information from a child. Parents are supporters of this, as they take more control in monitoring their children’s applications, messages, and social media. “Parents have a different view on feature phones, which are used mostly for calling and texting. More than half of respondents to the SodaHead survey said simple cell phones are fine for 13-15 year olds, and a quarter said they would allow them for children under 12” (Mobiledia). Parents feel more comfortable when children are not able to share their information. All this information leads parents to one conclusion: smartphones are dangerous.

This child is obviously in an enormous amount of danger. news.medill.northwestern.edu

 

Parents' beliefs are flawed, especially by the standards of today’s society. We live in a culture of smartphones and technology; electronics are inescapable. Technology is undeniably affecting children, both in good and bad ways. We must ask ourselves, is the use of technology worth the trade-offs? Children may be becoming smarter, but evidence shows that social skills are suffering. Nonetheless, in a world of rising technology, the need for social interaction becomes less prevalent. M.T. Anderson’s Feed is an example of what the world may become; we have the potential to message each other without even having a device because we are the device. However, his novel solely focuses on the detriments of a technological society; viruses are everywhere and one character even malfunctions to the point where her life is in danger. The Feed world is not our world. Our world is one of technological advancement, and intelligence surpasses the need for social interaction.

 

With rising technology, we have more communication than ever. vectorstock.com

Works Cited

Angeli Pilapil, Nina. "4 Dangers Posed by Smartphones on Kids." HowToLearn.com. N.p., 5 May 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

Bowden, William. "Smartphones Bad for Children’s Social Skills?" Razorback Reporter. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

Brown, Genevieve Shaw. "IPad Baby Seat: Bad Parenting or Sign of the Times?"ABC News. ABC News Network, 06 Dec. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.

Jessamyn. "6 Reasons to Get Your Kid a Smartphone." WIRED. WIRED.com, 16 June 2011. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Jones, Reese. "5 Benefits of Giving Your Kids a Smartphone." EduPad. N.p., 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Kamenetz, Anya. "A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution." Fastcompany.com (n.d.): 1-12. 1 Apr. 2010. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.

Leroy, Gondy, and Gianluca De Leo. "Smartphones to Facilitate Communication and Improve Social Skills of Children with Severe Autism Spectrum Disorder: Special Education Teachers as Proxies." N.p., 1 June 2008. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

"No Smartphone Until You’re 16, Survey Says." Mobiledia. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.

O'Connor, Lydia. "One-Third Of Children Under 2 Have Used Smartphones, Study Says."The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 28 Oct. 2013. Web. 9 Feb. 2014.