Technology:- Are Children Under 12 Now Growing Up In A Different World Than College-Age Students Did?

For those of you who grew up in the 90s, childhood was much simpler, right? The luckiest kid was someone who had a TV at his house where your entire gang of friends could watch cartoons and not someone who owned the newest version of iPhone. We have come a long way and childhood now is nothing like how it used to be back then.Here is a short inventory of how childhood has changed:-Telephone v/s Mobiles: Back then we had the good old landline phones. Who uses them anymore? Everyone today is too dependent on their mobiles from a very young age.Playing Out v/s Video Games: Remember the times when playing football actually meant going out to play with your friends in the park and not sitting in front of a screen for a FIFA video game?Real Friends v/s Social Media Friends: Thanks to social media apps like Facebook, Snapchat, and the likes, kids today have more virtual friends than real-life friends.Music Then v/s Music Now: Kids of this generation and the generations to come might never feel the joy of making a mixed tape for their best friend. They have their sleek iPods and music is easily available on the internet.Toys Then v/s Toys Now: Toys or no toys, kids back then could play if you literally gave them a stick for a toy. But kids now are surrounded by high-tech toys.Fewer pictures v/s Selfies Today: Back then, kids never had easy-access to cameras or recorders. You were lucky if you still had some albums from your childhood. Kids now have iPads and iPhones and live in the selfie era.More Patience v/s Need for Instant Gratification: Kids today are so addicted to technology that they have lost the ability to sit still without constant stimulation from their gadgets.Books v/s Kindle: You truly experience the joy of reading when you hold the book in your hand and let your imagination travel with the story. But alas, books are dying a slow death with technology increasingly replacing them with kindle and audiobooks.While it may be too late or the damage technology has done may seem irreversible, it is never too late to learn how to put your gadgets away and be a part of the real world to enjoy your childhood better.Determining the Effects of Technology on

Children:-As children continue to become more immersed in media, many adults have

begun to wonder whether or not this exposure to such a high amount of electronic media

is a good thing or not. On the pro side, there is an argument that technology is preparing

children for the ‘real world’ that they will have to enter into. Sixty percent of jobs in the

market are technology-related, and children need the tech advantage to be successful in

such an environment (US Department of Education). On the other hand, however, others

argue that children using technology are becoming socially stunted, ungrateful, and

ridden with health-related issues.  Technology has opened up a

world of great opportunities, but these opportunities have come with great risks.

According to Sherry Turkle, a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, naming

technology as either good or bad will not solve the issue. “I’ve tried to get across that

computers are not good or bad – they’re powerful… I think we’re getting ourselves in a

lot of trouble thinking there’s an Internet or a web that has an impact on children” Pros: The Positive Side of Technology for Children:-There have been several studies on the positive educational impact that technology has on

students as young as kindergarteners.Cheryl Lemke, executive director of the

Milken Exchange on Education Technology conducted an interview with Technology and

Learning Magazine to outline specifically why technology in the classroom is truly a

benefit for students (cosmopolisschool.com). In her interview, Lemke outlines these four

distinct reasons as: Technology accelerates and enriches basic skills. Students who have access to

technology become more quickly engrossed in the material, and as such are able to

absorb the information more quickly. Electronic material can be more stimulating

and interactive for children. Technology is incredibly motivational since it provides ease to students. In a

study conducted by David Dwyer, vice president of advanced learning technology

for Computer Curriculum Corporation, students were found to produce more

writing because it was easier to type than write, which kept them more interested. Technology facilitates new fields through simulations and three-dimensional

models that would not have been accessible beforehand. Keeping Up with the Joneses The introduction of technology into modern culture has drastically shifted social

norms to include the technology into children’s daily lives. Today, it is not uncommon to

see children playing on their portable video game systems while at a restaurant with their

family, or to see a child operating a computer better than some adults. While these trends

seem appalling to some, according to author Lev Grossman, they are only the result of an

evolving society, and might not be as much of a worry as we thought. While these norms

seem outrageous now, within a few years, they will become commonplace (Time.com).

When writing his Time Magazine article calling Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year in

2010, he stated:“People hated Facebook’s News Feed when it was introduced in 2006. They

thought it was creepy and intrusive. Zuckerberg stood his ground, and now

Facebook is unimaginable without it. He moved the chains, and we went with

him, setting up our defense that much farther toward the end zone. “The world is

changing,” Cox says. “When my caller ID came out, people went psycho. You

know, because, Oh my God, now people are going to know I’m calling them!

This is terrible! I’m going to end up being tracked, and Big Brother and Orwell

and all that! The reality is, now you won’t pick up a call unless you know who’s

calling you.” Keeping Track of Children Safety has become a major concern for parents who are trying to keep control of

their children in an increasingly busy and distracting world. As our lives get more chaotic

and crowded, parents have been looking for more efficient and reliable ways of keeping

an eye on where their children are at all times. Allowing children to have a cell phone

fulfills this functionality for connectivity, and is now easier and more accessible than ever

before. The development of cell phones made specifically for children helped to ease the

concerns that come along with childhood connectivity.In order to balance

these two issues, a degree of

parental control on the phone is

necessary, and made easier

through newer child friendly

mobile devices.  Cons: The Negative Side of Technology for Children:“Our children’s digital lives are turning them into much different creatures from us – and

not necessarily for the better.” – Dalton Conley, Time Magazine Loss of Privacy: “We’re always connected because we’re always connecting.” Facebook has been arguably the biggest web phenomena in recent memory,

taking in millions of active users and allowing them to keep in touch with their friends

and family, and also the entire world. Any user can constantly and publicly broadcast

their photos, videos, opinions, personal information, and even exact location, to

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whomever they so choose.Lessened ability to multitask

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Although many avid technology users believe they have become more able to

handle multitasking, scientific studies have shown that the effects of using technology

may be the opposite of these conceptions. Technology today has become more than just

using a computer at work, or checking your email once you get home. It has become a

constant stream of information flowing into our lives through mobile notifications,

thousands of functional apps, and the easily accessible wireless Internet. These

capabilities have been great, however as Powers states in Hamlet’s Blackberry “We’ve

been doing our best to ignore it, but it won’t go away. It comes down to this: Health-Related Issues

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As video games and electronic entertainment continue to develop and work their

way into more children’s lives, a rising fear among parents is that children are becoming

more prone to health-related issues, such as obesity and developmental challenges. The

obesity rate in children has tripled in the past 20 years (the-apps). According to

livestrong.com, fifteen percent of children between six and nineteen years old can be

considered overweight, with twice as many on the brink of becoming such. They link this

‘epidemic’ to not only the prevalence of high-calorie food but technology as well, as it

leads to a sedentary lifestyle.Changing Social Norms

While this generation may be the most connected generation ever, this ability to

instantly contact anyone may pose a great risk to young children. When people interact

with one another through the Internet or cell phones, it is a far different social experience

than speaking with someone one-on-one. When we communicate in these ways, we are

hidden behind the ‘digital wall,’ which can allow us to have conversations we might not

have in person. For instance, users of dating websites will be more likely to ask someone

to chat on the site than they would be if it were a face-to-face interaction. Hiding behind

the digital veil for media-based conversations has caused children to develop a disconnect

from others, and even from themselves. “We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.”  — Stacia Tauscher, dancer and artist