When the little
girl pointed at the sweets at the checkout, her mother said: ‘No, they’re bad
for your teeth.’ So her daughter, who was no more than two, did what small
children often do at such times. She threw a tantrum.
What happened next
horrified me. The embarrassed mother found her iPad in her bag and thrust it
into her daughter’s hands. Peace was restored immediately.
This incident,
which happened three years ago, was the first time I saw a tablet computer used
as a pacifier. It certainly wasn’t the last. Since then, I’ve seen many tiny
children barely able to toddle yet expertly swiping an iPad – not to mention
countless teenagers, smartphone in hand, lost to the real world as they tap out
texts.
Today, on average, children spend five to six hours
a day staring at screens. And they’re often on two or more screens at once –
for example, watching TV while playing on an iPad.
Because technology moves so fast, and children have
embraced it so quickly, it’s been difficult for parents to control it. And when
it comes to spending a childhood in front of a screen, this generation are like
lab rats. The long-term impact is not known.
Few know that the late Apple boss Steve Jobs didn’t let his own
children have iPads. I wish he had gone public on this as
other parents might have followed suit. Because the earlier children are
hooked on screens, the more difficult it is to wean them off.
This is not the only worry. It’s not just what
children get up to onscreen that affects their overall development. It’s what
screens displace – all the activities they’re not doing in the real world.
Today’s children have far fewer opportunities for what I call ‘real play’. They
are no longer learning through first-hand experiences how to be human and are
much less likely to play or socialize outdoors or with others.
One of the most depressing examples of a totally
screen-based childhood involved a ten-year-old in London. The overweight,
pasty-faced little lad told me: ‘I sit in my room and I watch my telly and play
on my computer . . . and if I get hungry I text down to my mum and she brings
me up a pizza.’ The change in children’s play has happened in little more than
a couple of decades. While many parents feel uneasy about all that screen-time,
they haven’t tackled it as they’ve been so busy keeping up with changes in
their own lives.
And anyway, it’s happening to children
everywhere – so surely it can’t be bad for them?
A whole generation
could grow up without the mental ability to create their own fun, devise their
own games and enjoy real friendships – all because of endless screen-time.
It’s getting out
and about – running, climbing, making dens and so on – that allows little
children to gain physical skills. Playing ‘let’s pretend’ is a creative process
requiring lots of personal input.
Real play develops
initiative, problem-solving skills and many other positive traits, such as a
can-do attitude, perseverance and emotional resilience. It’s vital for social
skills, too. By playing together, youngsters learn to get along with other
people. They discover how others’ minds work, developing empathy. And, as real
play is driven by an innate desire to understand how the world works, it
provides the foundation for academic learning. Real play is evolution’s way of
helping children develop minds of their own – curious, problem- solving,
adaptable, human minds.
Babies are born with an intense desire to learn
about their world, so they’re highly motivated to interact with people and
objects around them – the beginning of real play. That’s why they love it when
we play silly games with them, such as peekaboo, or they manage to grasp some
household object. This is what helps them develop physical co-ordination and
social skills.
‘We cannot park our children in front of
screens and expect them to develop a long attention span.’
Yet another problem
with too much screen-gazing is that it doesn’t develop resilience. Real
play gives children opportunities to learn how to cope with challenges for
themselves. Finding how to learn from their mistakes, picking themselves up
when they take a tumble and sorting out squabbles with playmates all help
develop the self-confidence that makes children more emotionally resilient.
Childline warned Britain is producing deeply
unhappy youngsters – sad, lonely, with low self-esteem and an increasing
predilection to self-harm. The charity painted a bleak portrait of our
children’s emotional state, blaming their unhappiness on social networking and
cyber-bullying.
we can’t go on letting our children ‘be
like everyone else’ when it’s damaging them. If the next generation is to grow
up bright, balanced and healthy enough to use technology wisely, Parents need to take action. - that means limiting screen-time, spending time
together as a family and making sure get children out to play. Some
say children need to use technology because that’s the way the world is going.
But there’s no need to give little children high-tech devices.
