Digital technologies have profoundly changed childhood and adolescence. The internet and the means to access it, such as tablets and smartphones, along with social media platforms and messaging apps, have become integral to the lives of youth around the world. They have transformed their education and learning, the way they make and maintain friendships, how they spend their leisure time, and their engagement with wider society. 

For children, internet access is a double-edged sword. In other words, being able to get online can be both good and bad for kids.

Benefits

There is much research being conducted in child use of technology, and the results are fairly mixed, some experts say that young children should not be exposed to screens at all, whilst others say in the correct environment, and intermixed with a range of other activities such as reading and exercise, it can be beneficial.

Physical activity, reading, and human interaction will always play a very important part in child development, and personal computing should not replace or be detrimental to these experiences, but in the right environment it can bring new educational experiences to young children, and help them develop their skills and broaden their horizons:

Hand-eye coordination

Educational games that require children to follow objects and interact with them can help their hand eye coordination, also their understanding of how to interact with systems, for example knowing that pressing the right button will invoke the desired action.

Access to a wealth of information

Children can only learn what is available to them, traditionally parents, friends, school, and the wider community would have been the only gateways to learning. Now the World Wide Web gives them a vast library of material to allow them to discover new things.

Language Skills

Knowing they can ask the computer anything they want to know drives a child’s desire to do research, many children will use voice to enter their search queries into search engines, and then need to read and evaluate the results that are presented. Over time their language will improve and they will become faster and more adept at finding the information they want.

Problem Solving

Interactive websites and games help children learn to solve problems as they work their way through the challenges presented to get to the next level. Even simply using the devices makes them more adept at this, learning how to solve problems like programs not working correctly or connection issues.

Disadvantages:

Children’s isolation

 If parents do not take care of children when they interact with technology, they begin to stay apart and lock themselves up in private spaces to play or watch videos on mobile devices.

Access to unsuitable content: 

Although big companies like Facebook and YouTube have reinforced their child protection policies launching versions of their apps that are suitable for children, the fact is that appropriate content filters are not the standard yet. Children are exposed to apps and content that do not contribute to their development.

Using a device as a ‘nanny’: 

Some parents use methods as a tool to calm down their children. The provide them with devices but do not monitor them. As a consequence, children are deprived of contact with others, and their behavior is not self-regulated.

Sleep disorders:

the overstimulation caused by devices does not contribute to healthy sleep. Lack of sleep can impact concentration, behavior, eating, and overall health.

Technology encourages the development of the sensory skills of children.

Everything in Moderation

As with anything, too much can be detrimental, and research shows this is the same for children and computers. Here are our top tips to make sure your children get the most out of new technology:

Limit Screen Time

We all know what a life saver the tablet can be when you are trying to get things organised and your child comes out with the familiar “I’m Bored!!”, but we should be careful to limit the amount of time they spend in front of the screen, and make sure it is mixed in with a healthy amount of other activities such as exercise, playing, reading, and human interaction.

You should also make sure they don’t have too much screen time in one go, and they have put down their device a good amount of time before bed. The blue light emitted from LCD screens has been shown to disrupt sleep by interfering with our natural body rhythms, blocking our bodies from creating a sleep hormone called melatonin.

Interactive is better that passive

Research shows that the benefits of technology are much greater when the screen time is interactive rather than passive, and benefits are most great when it is supervised, and other interaction accompanies the activity, such as discussion.

The ability to control what is happening and a challenge to solve will stimulate their brains enabling them to learn, as opposed to passive content where they will just consume what is shown to them, and they do not have to do anything.

High Quality Content

It is important to make sure your children are engaging with high quality content during their screen time, studies have concluded that excessive unsupervised viewing of low quality content show a negative impact was found on play, hobbies, sleep, hygiene and eating habits.

Exposure to the right sort of content can be achieved through a number of mechanisms from parental controls to ensure that you are in control of the apps and games your child can download, and child friendly versions of full blown apps such as YouTube for kids. Use in conjunction with talking to your child about the kind of content they should and shouldn’t watch, and monitoring the content they are consuming.

Safe Usage

We all love things more when it involves real people, and the same is true of technology, tech such as social media now enables us to connect across great distances, so many platforms and games now include a social aspect to make content more engaging.

As per checking your children are engaging with high quality content, check that any social elements to the apps they are using are appropriate for their age, and that there are proper safeguards in place in the app to ensure that they cannot be contacted by strangers.

Also talk to your child about the risks of befriending people they do not know, and make sure they understand what to do if they are being contacted by strangers or being asked for personal information.

Conclusion

When used correctly, in moderation, and coupled with and not to the detriment of other activities, the use of technology can be beneficial to your child’s development. But with a caveat that uncontrolled usage or overuse can cause problems.