Why Are Mobile Phones Bad for Kids?
It occurred to me recently that children born anywhere up to ten years ago are going to have a vastly different childhood to ours. My experience of state-of-the-art technology progressed slowly from Walkmans, to CD players, to a Nokia 3210, and eventually my own slow computer and laptop.
Children today are getting their parents to buy them smartphones and tablets with more processing power than all of my childhood technology combined. We don’t yet know how today’s technology will affect children differently to how our technology affected us.
Read on for a breakdown of popular reasons for and against children possessing mobile technology.
Reasons For
Social Development
One of the biggest differences children of today will have from us, is the way in which they interact socially. Instead of going round each other’s houses to talk and catch up, kids now constantly text, Skype, or do something similar. The question that concerns some people is whether they will turn into adults who behave the same way socially as we do.
Text-speak has already become very commonplace in schools. I can see why too; it allows you to express a viewpoint very quickly. Instead of saying, ‘that’s pretty funny’, just substitute ‘lol’. One school is so concerned that children will start substituting text-speak for regular language that it’s decided to ban text-speak within school grounds.
Kids Are Very Adaptable to Technology
Children have incredibly adaptable minds and skill sets, which is why most primary-school children can figure out how to use a smartphone faster than a 50-year-old. It is this adaptability that keeps kids one step ahead of the previous generation, since their minds can easily take in what is already the height of technology as their ‘starting point’.
By giving children access to technology like smartphones and tablets, it is gearing them up for a world which is destined to become more and more enveloped in gadgetry. If parents denied their children modern
Children today are getting their parents to buy them smartphones and tablets with more processing power than all of my childhood technology combined. We don’t yet know how today’s technology will affect children differently to how our technology affected us.
Read on for a breakdown of popular reasons for and against children possessing mobile technology.
Reasons For
Social Development
One of the biggest differences children of today will have from us, is the way in which they interact socially. Instead of going round each other’s houses to talk and catch up, kids now constantly text, Skype, or do something similar. The question that concerns some people is whether they will turn into adults who behave the same way socially as we do.
Text-speak has already become very commonplace in schools. I can see why too; it allows you to express a viewpoint very quickly. Instead of saying, ‘that’s pretty funny’, just substitute ‘lol’. One school is so concerned that children will start substituting text-speak for regular language that it’s decided to ban text-speak within school grounds.
Kids Are Very Adaptable to Technology
Children have incredibly adaptable minds and skill sets, which is why most primary-school children can figure out how to use a smartphone faster than a 50-year-old. It is this adaptability that keeps kids one step ahead of the previous generation, since their minds can easily take in what is already the height of technology as their ‘starting point’.
By giving children access to technology like smartphones and tablets, it is gearing them up for a world which is destined to become more and more enveloped in gadgetry. If parents denied their children modern