Digital Media, Electronics and Your Children
An interesting interview on WNYC’s New Tech City with Dr. Ari Brown.
Americans will buy millions of smartphones, tablet computers and other digital tech this holiday season, and many of those gifts will be given to children.
Nineteen percent of kids between the ages of two and five know how to use a smartphone application, while just nine percent can tie his or her shoelaces, according to a 2010 study conducted as part of a year-long ‘Digital Diaries’ research project on the influence of technology on children by the internet security company AVG.
The AAP [American Academy of Pediatrics] suggested kids two years old and younger be completely screen-free and that older children should get no more than two hours of screen time a day [this includes “background” exposure].
Dr. Brown weighs in on the longterm effects of digital technology on childhood development and what parents should think about when deciding when their kids should get their own smartphones or Facebook accounts.
“Kids who have even one device — one electronic device [including TV] — in their room, much less two or three, are getting significantly less sleep a night,” Brown said.
At The Montessori House we’re big proponents of more sleep for children … and we’re not too enthusiastic about digital media (TV, computer, video games, smartphones, etc.) for children. The Montessori classroom emphasizes interaction with the “real” world, not a digital facsimile; three dimensions of space, dimensions of time, sound, smell, feel, and taste, not to mention the psychological “dimensions” from interacting with family, friends, other people, pets, animals and the world inside and outside. Nothing on a screen can compare or provide children the physical, intellectual, emotional and developmental richness!
In any event, for the most part we keep digital media out of our classrooms; children in our community receive plenty of media exposure outside school.