RaduTyrsina
News Team
Yesterday we expressed some concerns we had about kids being abandoned to technology. We admit giving your 4-year old an iPad to play with is a good way to shut him/her up for a while, but parents should also take into consideration the potentially harmful effects of long term exposure.
A new study released by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London found that children who engage in lots of activities involving text messages, emails or other forms of online entertainment perform lower than average when it comes to learning new vocabulary words. The reality is that as children tend to spend more time interacting with gadgets, playing games and whatnot,​​they are distancing themselves from books and reading.
Long gone are the days when children used to hide under the blanket with a flashlight to read. Now it’s all about swinging the iPad. The study also mentioned that the voice of a parent or teacher is essential to the child’s learning process. After all, this is how toddlers learn how to speak, they listen to their moms and dads and imitate the speech pattern.
But when your child is curled up with his/her iPad most of the time and you’re reading the news section on the iPhone, there’s no wonder the kid will experience difficulties with speech.
We’re not saying that the iPad isn’t a wonderful piece of technology, but we can’t help but wonder if devices such as these are making us lazy. Too lazy to get out of bed, too lazy to meet up with a friend (when you could be on the Internet) and eventually too lazy to entertain our own children. We should stop for a moment and weight out the consequences.
Source: The Independent
A new study released by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London found that children who engage in lots of activities involving text messages, emails or other forms of online entertainment perform lower than average when it comes to learning new vocabulary words. The reality is that as children tend to spend more time interacting with gadgets, playing games and whatnot,​​they are distancing themselves from books and reading.
Long gone are the days when children used to hide under the blanket with a flashlight to read. Now it’s all about swinging the iPad. The study also mentioned that the voice of a parent or teacher is essential to the child’s learning process. After all, this is how toddlers learn how to speak, they listen to their moms and dads and imitate the speech pattern.
But when your child is curled up with his/her iPad most of the time and you’re reading the news section on the iPhone, there’s no wonder the kid will experience difficulties with speech.
We’re not saying that the iPad isn’t a wonderful piece of technology, but we can’t help but wonder if devices such as these are making us lazy. Too lazy to get out of bed, too lazy to meet up with a friend (when you could be on the Internet) and eventually too lazy to entertain our own children. We should stop for a moment and weight out the consequences.
Source: The Independent