New technologies are becoming more and more accessible in homes and that means that children in the home also have access to them. The ease of use and the wide range of applications for children have made the iPad and other tablets stop being devices intended for the use of the elderly to be increasingly used by the little ones in the house. This did not happen with desktop computers or laptops, mainly due to their price and their greater complexity of use. But not only does the iPad have a leading role in homes, but it is increasingly reaching schools, and in many centers it is already one more work tool. The controversy is served: Should children use tablets? ¿Has consequences on their learning and development? The experts do not agree at all and there are opinions of all kinds.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Pediatric Society have issued a report recommending that children have limited use of new technologies. Children under the age of 2 should not use it at all, between 3 and 5 years old they should only use it 1 hour a day, and children between 6 and 18 years old only two hours a day. Among the reasons for limiting this access are:
- Rapid brain growth before two years of age can cause overstimulation to lead to developmental disorders such as attention deficit, cognitive delays, etc.
- Developmental delays caused by decreased movement, which can have consequences on learning.
- Obesity due to lack of physical activity.
- Lack of sleep due to the use of new technologies in their rooms, losing hours of sleep.
- Mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorders, autism, and behavioral disorders.
- Aggressive behaviors due to the use of violent content.
- "Digital dementia" for viewing content at high speed.
- Addiction to new technologies.
- Radiation exposure: Smartphones and other wireless devices have been classified by some experts as "probably carcinogenic" devices (classification 2A). Although there is no unanimity on the matter, there are studies that propose it.
- Unsustainability: children are the future and cannot continue to make excessive use of new technologies.
The document only reports on the negative aspects for which the use of new technologies should be limited, but nothing is mentioned about its positive aspects. IPads (and tablets in general) have opened a new door for children's learning. Interactive books are just one example of this. How is a drawing made on a blackboard going to compare with a cartoon or video on a tablet screen? Shouldn't it be much better for children to be able to interact with the content rather than just passive spectators in a class?
New technologies have changed the way children play, but is that necessarily harmful? Those of us who are parents now have seen how in our childhood and adolescence there was talk of children who spent hours and hours in front of the television "swallowing" everything that the "silly box" offered. I am not going to fall into the serious mistake of saying that spending the same hours in front of a tablet is better than doing it in front of the television, because neither one thing nor the other is recommended, but are the advantages of doing something that are not clear? requires your attention and your intervention in front of the other thing that the only thing it requires is your passivity?.
A balanced use of new technologies in the educational and domestic sphere it is without a doubt the most recommendable thing, and not to let the iPad be our children's nanny and teacher. The recommendations of both scientific societies are very important to take into account and should make more than one of us think if the use that our children make of new technologies is not excessive for their age.
