Impacts of Electronic Gadgets on Child Development

Impacts of Electronic Gadgets on Child Development

Majority of parents and guardians globally are taking the advantage of the new technology as a means of helping them in their parenting. The introduction of smartphones and tablets has been an invention the parents use to keep their children busy and quite when they are attending to other things apart from their children little do they know they are causing a lot of harm to them. These gadgets capture the attention of these children to a point that they can’t get their eyes off the screens. This technique is widely used to entice the children and keep them occupied. Although it has some benefits, the tendency is accompanied by a lot of negative impacts not only on the child’s brain development but also speech, social and emotional development. Moreover, the comprehensive research that has been conducted over the years by psychologists and parenting experts has extensive clear data to prove that the intense usage of these gadgets by children impede their ability to learn self-regulation. In addition, it may have weird and dangerous visions causing psychological torment to the child’s brain.

According to Radesky et al, (3) a recent research on the topic of smartphones and tablets being delivered to children show that 21 % of the children in the United States are provided with smartphones when they are eight years and younger. Moreover, 56 % of the children between the age of 8 to 12 have a smartphone and 69 % of families with children have smartphones. Majority of these children use these gadgets for taking pictures, playing games, chatting with friends and watching videos with only 15 % using them for educational purposes.

The children’s brain rapidly develops at a young age assisting to acquire best interaction skills. With their eyes always glued to the screens and their head bend down perusing through different less important things on the tablets distracts their interaction with their parents and siblings bringing harm to their language and brain development. Having screen-based babysitters for children creates a barrier to the children to interact with the social and physical environment which negatively affects their interaction development. The children end up growing with fewer interactions skills due to their difficulties in communicating effectively and expressing themselves to other people. Verbal and signed expressive and receptive language skills are inherent in social interaction which the children might not have them hence poor development in making friendships and communicating with other children effectively.

According to research, it has been proven that children learn better and faster with the things they can touch and interact with them rather than the things they only see. Cognitive development in children who are always on their tablets is poor compared to those who rarely use them. The basic fact being maneuvering concepts related to cognitive development are well understood in three dimensional than in two dimensional. This is the reason behind the introduction of toys to children since they help in building these concepts. Consequently, playing with building blocks has been proven to improve mathematical skills to children rather than their interaction with electronic gadgets. Significantly, building blocks provide the hands-on activities essential for the development of sensorimotor and visual-motor skills which assist in learning mathematics and science. Furthermore, they enhance the ability to think and solve puzzles. Screens cause harm to children because some of these important skills are very hard to learn through the tablets and smartphones.

Besides, extreme exposure to these gadgets creates a potential risk to the child’s physical growth and development. The American Academy of Pediatrics do not completely allow profound screen time for kid younger than two since to their knowledge physical interaction with the environment is essential for the kids (Radesky et al, 2). Children should be given time to explore their environments physically rather than getting stimulations from screens so that they can build their bodies through physical play. Physical interaction helps the children develop empathy and elements of physical interaction which are necessary for playing outdoors, engaging in hobbies and using their imagination with free play.

Excessive exposure to tablets and smartphones have a negative impact on attention span and levels of concentration. Studies have shown that children who study using physical tools like books build high levels of concentration than the children using e-learning techniques. Due to the fact that there are noisy notifications and alerts in electronic devices the children’s attention is distracted hence less focusing on the purpose of the study. Physical books are advantageous since they lack distractions allowing maximum concentration on the content available.

Social-emotional development is greatly affected by the intensified use of electronic gadgets like smartphones and tablets. Screens limit face-face interactions causing harm to the children social skills. They are ‘blindfolded’ from expressing and dealing their own emotions making them difficult to handle them. Also, they are limited from understanding other people emotions. These gadgets interfere with the ability to develop social interaction skills that are basically learned from the interaction with parents and other children.

In addition, these gadgets interfere with speech development of children at their young age. Ability to speak and utter some relevant and meaningful word is extracted from the interaction between the kids and their parents. Exposing them to these electronic gadgets increases the chances of the child to have delayed speech or stammering at times. This causes a lot of harm which is usually unintentional and out of knowledge by parents. Researchers have found that children between the age of six months to two years spent roughly 27 minutes using a handheld device risking the delay of expressive speech. Uncontrolled screen time reduces the duration of the brain in learning new language hence building communication barriers for the child.

In conclusion, parents ought to learn new parenting techniques on the way they interact with their children in order to avoid unnecessary preventive problems encountered with the use of smartphones and tablets by children. From the above discussion, it has been noticed that excessive screen time in children interferes with a lot of developments in a child. Parents should be made aware of the negative impacts of exposing electronic gadgets to their children at their tender age. Despite the new technology having pros, it is also accompanied by harmful cons to child development.

References

Radesky, Jenny S., Jayna Schumacher, and Barry Zuckerman. “Mobile and interactive media use by young children: the good, the bad, and the unknown.” Pediatrics 135.1 (2015): 1-3.