Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Should phones be used as pacifiers?
What are the dangers and the advantages of letting small children play with mobile phones, ipads and other electronic devices? Should such devices be designed and marketed for young children? Would you give your child something like this? What should parents do when a child becomes bored in a public place?
The modern technology is affecting our lives to a great extent. We can’t imagine our current world without big influence of technology. It’s true, that the new contrivances are making our lives much easier. However, we shouldn’t forget the traditional values.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it’s totally ill that parents are trying to occupy their children using a variety of applications on the mobile phones. Children are one of the most important parts of our society, because the future development of human thinking depends on them! If we will spend less time with them, it can cause the significant changes in their character.
Amber Mullaney, as is mentioned in the article, thinks that iPhone solves the problems with kid’s early behavior. That's ultimate stupidity. If the parents will not spend much time talking, teaching and raising the children, some of the kid’s qualities will not be developed enough. They’ll be less communicative, they will be less sensitive! If they won’t feel the interest from their mums and dads, they won’t be emotionally well developed.
The statistic, which is mentioned in the article, is alarming! However, perfectly reflects our society. Since parents are often in hurry, they do not have enough time for their children, and that’s why there’s a rise in emotional barer between them. So parents are less able to raise their children and because of this, kids are ill-mannered during the errands and so parents are choosing an easier way to occupy them – smartphones.
That’s really sad that, some companies are making applications for very young children. They’re only interested in the profit of their company and not in the impacts on affecting kid’s characters.
The activities mentioned in the article, such as naming body parts, singing nursery rhymes should be done in face to face contact between the child and parent.
Playing games during traveling by bus or train? That’s nonsense. I don’t want to believe in it. If are kids traveling with their parents or friends, they should talk to each other. The kids should ask basic questions to their parents during the travelling through countryside such as: “Why is the hay grouped in shape of the cylinder?” And parents should answer: “It’s because it’s drying.” And if the kids are travelling on their own, they’ve got time to think, to observe the surroundings, to notice the reactions of the surroundings and having come home they should ask their parents something like: “Hi mum, I’ve seen a strange man in a bus sitting on a chair, and then the old women got in, but he didn’t let her sit. Is it normal to behave like he?”
I agree with the statement of experts. We can’t completely cut kids from modern technology. However, in the first place should be traditional values, such as talking with kids about various issues, reading books, showing animals in pictures, building castles out of cubes and so on. And when kids will be older, they can be allowed to use, for example tablets to learn something in a fun way. In this case, the modern technology would be helpful and innovating.
The case of Stacey Stark reflects possible situation caused by smartphones. Fortunately, she decided to solve the problems caused by modern technology. However, some parents may not be able to solve similar situation because of being busy due to need of making living. Joan McCoy, tries to at least partially solve these problems. But it’s quite hard if the parents are not able to do it too. He should continue to do what he is doing, but he should also talk to parents of his grandkids and explain them that they urgently need to rethink the way of theirs lifestyle.
In the current world, the well-being of people is much higher than it was in the past. The new conveniences are making our lives easier. It’s just up to us, if we will profit from new technology, or we will fall prey to it.
This article doesn’t really objectively talk about the risks of the usage of the mobile phones, iPads and other electronics, it rather suggests that these days many parents use the electronic devices to „shut their child up“.
ReplyDeleteObviously there are many dangers of the usage of these new Technologies as well as many advantages. The dangers of the usage of mobile phones, iPad or mp3 players include health and social problems. The health problems appear after a really long usage of the electronics, and they can be higher risks of different types of cancer caused by the presence of the waves from the electronics, damaged nerves which may reveal in different behaviors, it can also cause some memory losses or mental confusions mainly in the early ages. Then it can cause less serious problems as well, these include headaches, problems with sleeping or irritability. On the other hand, the usage of electronics can have positive effects on the kids as well. For example with cell phones children are able to contacts home or have family contact them at any time. Other electronics can contain calendars, cameras, alarms or clocks that can make the life of older kids easier. Obviously small kids wouldn’t use the electronics for such things; I guess they would just use it for playing. This is the stage where parents should take part, they shouldn’t let the kids spent too much time with the devices.
In my opinion, it is good to have these electronics designed and marketed because they can really help us in many cases, but I also think that it is more useful for the older students. Smaller kids should find different hobbies such Lego or other games. There are always various possibilities how to pacify a child by not just giving them a mobile, iPad or other electronic device. Parents should take them for a walk, or read books with the smaller kids. If you know that your child gets bored at public places you should talk to them, tell them some stories, or give them the books as I said before.
When it would be upon me whether I would give my child an electronic device, I would say yes, but only after a certain age at around 10-12 year where my child would start the „real learning“for which the devices are useful. Obviously it also depends on the electronic device, because I would give my child a mobile phone earlier because I would want to make sure that it’s safe. Once I would find out that my child is miss-using it for other purposes out of limit and I would have the feeling that she/he is adducted I would do the punishments as well, but otherwise I don’t think it’s necessary. However I am pretty sure that i wouldn’t use the electronics to „shut up my child“
There is still one significant point, people failed to consider here. It is that playing with mobile phones does not only undermine the development of children’s ability to interact with others, but also their imagination. All games, whether computer, I-phone or PSP, it doesn’t matter, are all based on one of the two following. Either the player is taking information IN, comprehends this information and applies a valid reaction to the virtual scenario the game creates, or (the less likely) the game is focused on the memory of the player.
ReplyDeleteImagination is something games are not capable of integrating into their world. Sure, some drawing applications can do this, but it is a very hard blow to the development of the kid’s ability to imagine a storyline for a game they can play in groups (something all the previous generations enjoyed). I am not saying that they will need imagination it in the future profession, but creativity is something every person should have. And children that play with I-phones all the time will have problems with it.
People that were creative and capable of developing something new are the ones that make every invention, accomplishment or breakthrough in any field of study possible. With children whose creativity is undeveloped, this will be a problem. You might have noticed, that development of new technologies has slowed down rapidly.
Allow me to explain. Yes or course people are developing newer technology, making everything faster, smaller and more efficient, but when was the last time someone actually came up with something new? In the past, people came up with new things. Phones, radio technology, space exploration or any creations in art have stopped. Think about it. Someone came up with a radio transmitter. Transmitting sound across great distances was something people could only dream about back then. They were completely blown away by it when suddenly a television was invented. Now they could transmit pictures across distances as well. That was something people also only dreamt about.
But suddenly, the inventions stopped. Why is that? It’s not that there is nothing new to be discovered. I believe it’s simpler. It’s us. We started to destroy our imagination. We have stopped dreaming.
In the late 20th century, it all started. At first the computer and the internet, and then the mobile phone, iPad, iPod and so on were introduced to humans. We use them in our everyday life since it makes everything easier and faster. Around 20 to 30 years ago people did not even think of how the mobile phones and the computer will influence the world. Basically, the social connections between people and the total world changed. It mostly affects the new generation which grows up with these electronic device. My age group was one of the last which was not influenced so much.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 8 years old my parents gave me my first phone. A really simple one when you compare it to iPhones and other tablets. It had one game on it, snakes. I started playing it but neither though I found it more interesting to talk to my friends and play different kinds of games. The new generation, in my opinion, will not choose to be social but will more likely be playing games on the computer, on the iPhone, iPad or be chatting on Facebook. They will know the devices since birth and that means that they will be used to them. Generally, they can’t imagine life without them; it got a part of their life. That’s why I think that parents should not give their children any electronic devices to make them sit still and behave.
Moreover, there shouldn’t be such apps for babies and little children to make them quiet. If a child gets bored in a public place, the parent should pay attention to the child. Isn’t that there role? In my opinion it is and the important thing is that they will raise them and not the phone. Another possibility, to prevent the children from making noise and behave in a bad way in a public place is that there would be introduced places for the children in for example in a restaurant where the parents will leave there children. The parents can relax and the child can play with other children while some professionals will take care that nothing happens to the kids while playing. At this place for the kids, the child will learn how to be social with other kids and it can use its imagination and not the
one of the device.
At the end, there are a lot of dangers for the children which are caused by these devices. Not only mental but also health issues. That’s why we need to inform the parents about it. We need to keep the new generation of children social and make them use their imagination and creativity or they will not experience things in their childhood they should to have a normal life.
Comment on Simon:
ReplyDeleteI partially disagree with you. You said the computer games, in general, are not using child’s imagination, therefore they are not developing it. I would like to point out that a proportion of imagination, however small it is, is needed while playing games. And some of them surely require imagination to proceed in a game. For example RPGs, Strategies and so. I do not want to pardon the overuse of computers during upbringing but just point that they are not “evil.”
You also came to a conclusion, which is based on what you have said about the games, that this phenomena of computers has slowed down the technological evolution of our age. I do not share this opinion but rather think that this is the result of shifted expectations we have for the “geniuses” of this time. Nowadays, the technological breakthroughs are either too scientific for us, normal people, to completely understand the extent of their influence/effect or it is possible that “big things” are much harder to find and consequently prove than they were in the past. We could not think that we would proceed at the constant rate forever. There are limits which are harder and harder to overcome. Many major “inventions” in the past were discoveries of things already present in the nature. Therefore I believe that we have even more capable people than before but the competitiveness is much higher and to stand out of the line is more difficult.
COMMENT ON MICHAL’S COMMENT ON MY COMMENT:
ReplyDeleteAs for your second paragraph you state that it was easy to make some discoveries in history, because those discoveries back then were occurring in nature. How can something not have originated in nature? When humans came to be, there was nothing but nature here, therefore every thing we have invented by now must have originated in nature. We just made slight modifications to it. (I do not suppose the Sumerians just found a randomly occurring heap of wheels) After this you might argue that everything we are going to invent is occurring in nature, but it is harder to find. I argue that it might not be hard to find at all. We are just not looking carefully, bound to the realm of logical thinking and unable to observe things with a certain level of imagination and creativity.
But still this part of our debate is I think less relevant to the topic of the article than the second one, so I suggest we focus on that one in the following comments.
In your first paragraph you focused on defending games from my assault on their capability to integrate imagination into them. Yes, you can always use the argument that a certain activity requires whatever you want, but it does not work because it is true. It works because you just really had to write a comment because the deadline was approaching (circumstances under which anything is possible). For the sake of me hoping you will reply to this comment, allow me ask you a question. Had disagreeing with me not been your homework, you would have disagreed with me? If you think that strategizing about how to kill an array of integers located on a computer server thousands of kilometers away from you is on the same level as developing a virtual scenario of a child game in your mind while playing with your real three dimensional friends, please enlighten me into your philosophy.
Yes, games do use a very small amount of children’s imagination, but my point was that it is so small, I think it is negligible. Also if you think about it, there is a significant difference between the aftereffects of the type of imagination you described (strategies) and the type they would use and build up if they were, for example, drawing or playing games with real people.
Thinking of strategies is fine, but the imagination I wanted to point to is what computers and other devices substitute by something else. Visual imagination is taken over by a screen and sounds are taken care of by speakerphones. But it is up to you. I believe that in your childhood you did not play with electronic devices and played with real people instead.
Let me ask you another question. Would you trade your childhood for the one this article describes?
This is a comment on comment. I will comment on Sabinas’ comment.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with her opinions on this issue. I think that parents should NOT use their iPhones, iPods or mobile phones to “shut their children up”. I think that each parent should be insofar responsible, that he will not give electronics to his child when its very young. It may cause many health or even social problems.
I also agree with Sabina that parents should spend more time with their children and pay more attention to them, rather than just give them some iPod to play with.
However, I do not agree with Sabina when she said that iPods are only used for playing games. It is partially true, because it is actually mainly used for playing games, but some games can be educational and provide to the child another source of information and another way to learn something new.
Electronics can have also a good effect on child, but we have to know where the borders are.