Effect of Technology on Children

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Remember the days when you were around 10 and you would run around the yard for hours with your friends playing some game or some sport, sweat and go back indoors for a cold refreshment? Happy healthy days, indeed. The kids these days prefer using their phones or tabs, downloading pictures and apps rather than going out.

THE PROBLEM WITH TODAY’S WORLD:

As the world progresses towards new technological developments, life has become simpler and has made us more comfortable, but these advancements also come with a great price. Technology today has brought out negative effects in children. These effects are alarming and cause major disturbances to the normal growth of children. Scientific studies on children who use only their devices every day rather than outdoor play have brought out results that are very disturbing.

ATTENTION SPAN:

When you were young, and when owning a TV was uncommon, time was devoted to reading and playing outside, which required more attention, memory capacity, and imagination. With the advent of modern technologies that promote visual stimuli, the areas of the brain meant for memory and attention are not used very often, which leads to severe lack of attention and the inability to store things in your brain for a long time (a theorem perhaps). For a growing child this presents a big problem and leads to severe defects in his attention span and the ability to remember things. Technology conditions the brain to pay attention in a very different way. When you are viewing a web page, an ad might pop up and cause you to get distracted very often.

SENSORY AND MOTOR FUNCTIONS:

When children prefer to stay indoors, they begin to live a very sedentary life. They lack any form of physical exercise and tend to become obese. The rate of obese kids has increased to 41 million worldwide in the last few years. Children who are obese tend to suffer from diabetes at a very early age. The overall psychology and behavior of children tend to change and they begin to suffer from many disorders like autism, ADHD, coordination disorder, sleep disorders, anxiety etc. On the whole, children are becoming very unhealthy due to overuse of technology.

A FINE BALANCE:

Tech products are not all that bad. For example, Research shows that kids who play video games or watch a few television shows tend to show improved visual-spatial skills, try to find out one particular object among a cluster of objects very quickly. Kids who surf the internet very often try to find the quickest way to answer any problem. Their critical thinking capabilities and problem-solving skills improve. 

But  these results are from kids who balance their time between technology and outdoor activities. 

We all know that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Work out a fine balance of time between technology-driven activities and other activities. Get the best of both worlds. 

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