Young children and technology

My theme is that technology has played a major role in children’s growth, as it relates to how children learn, communicate with peers, and get entertained in various ways as it has affected their pace of creativity and how they conduct themselves in society. In today’s culture, most children have welcomed the use of technology in every part of their everyday lives relative to children in 1990. Technology has made their work simpler, as a number of technology firms have come up with software designed for children using recent techniques. However, technology has impacted both positively and negatively on children due to its continuous evolvements it has affected their ability to learn and have real experience with their friends as children of today happen to possess technical tools such as iPad, video games, computers among others of which they tend to use without limits. Internet technology has become addictive to many children while some results to be internet predators while others grow to be video game addict.

I used the direct quote by Hatch, (2011), “I understand teenagers are excited to share any fun plans with friends, but they easily forget how dangerous giving away too much information can be. For example, instead of posting a status like ‘Walking around the Wrentham Outlets. Alone. Text me if you want to join me at xxx-xxx-xxxx,’ they should learn to be more vague, such as ‘Out shopping, text me if you want to join” to emphasize potential risks technology exposes children. This encourages cyber bullies and other persons with sinister intentions. In addition to this, technology alters the relationship of parents with their kids more parents especially in urban centers tend to be occupied with their jobs which give their children room to maximize their use technological equipment thus even ending up visiting inappropriate sites on the internet. Parents should, therefore, have time for their kids so as to build strong bonds and educate then on the dos and the don’ts.

I paraphrased the article journal titled “Children, wired: for better and for worse” by Bavelier, Green and Dye, (2010), as it effectively gives an account of how technology hurts rather than aids our children. Watching advertisements online also exposes kids to harm apart from those that educate them such as advertisements on school offers, for instance, university applications. Advertisements such as on drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes in addition to advertisements on the use of condoms expose them to risk of shifting their behaviors as they may take them as good things to use. Parents should keep track on what their kids’ access online by blocking websites which may harm their way of thinking. Other impacts are that technology makes kids get engrossed much to technology hence denies them chance to socialize with their peers thus they develop poor social skills.

After reading the course materials and drafting a well-structured paragraph with source integration, I have questions about whether it is actually technology which erodes children behavior. As from my opinion, children are bound to develop bad habits such as drinking and smoking are bound to engage in the same regardless of whether they watch television commercials encouraging the same or not. I therefore think that technology should not be blamed for the bad habits amongst our youth.

References

Bavelier, D., Green, C. S., & Dye, M. W. (2010). Children, wired: for better and for worse. Neuron, 67(5), 692-701.

Hatch, K. E. (2011). Determining the effects of technology on children.