The dire consequences of gadgets on child development

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Our children live in a completely different world than their parents lived. From the first months, the child is faced with the benefits of civilization, which his peers did not suspect 20-30 years ago. Diapers, baby monitors, electronic games, computers, interactive toys, mobile phones, videos, free access to TV with its commercials and bloody action films - all these phenomena surround today's children, starting from the first months of life.

The new world of childhood

It is known that the younger a person is, the easier it is to master the spirit of the times. A particularly open and sensitive group, of course, are preschoolers, since they do not just grow up - they form and develop in completely new conditions, which have never been found anywhere else. This new childhood develops and exists in the information environment that adults create for them. Let's try to consider some of the common features of this environment and understand how it affects modern children.

Nowadays, the production of a wide variety of goods for children is widely developed: from hygiene products and food to computer programs. The very names of trading companies testify to the scope of production and consumption (Empire of Childhood, World of Childhood, Children's World, Planet of Childhood, etc.).

At the same time, manufacturers of goods for children (especially informational ones) are extremely careless about the age characteristics of those for whom their products are intended. The toy market is clearly dominated by “adult” dolls, which are more suitable for teenagers, films for preschoolers in form and content are not designed for children's perception, modern books are not written in “children's” language. Adults try to specially dress preschoolers in adult fashion, offer four-five-year-old girls makeup products, teach them to sing and dance like adults - in a word, they do everything so that children stop being children as soon as possible.

Knowledge supplants skills

The focus on early adulthood is most clearly manifested in the passion for early learning. Purposeful learning (commonly referred to as early development) starts earlier. Today, there are already educational programs for babies (the "Clever Girl" kit includes programs for babies in all subjects - "Read before walking", "Mathematics from the cradle", "Encyclopedic knowledge from the cradle", etc.). The series of educational videos "I Can Do Anything" for babies from three months old is very popular! Babies are introduced to exotic animals, they are taught musical literacy and timing. Parents do not hesitate to trust the recommendations that promise to develop imagination, speech and thinking with the help of these films. And besides, it is much easier for a kid to turn on a movie than to play and talk to him.

Increased requirements for the knowledge and educational skills of kids are combined with an overly careful, protective attitude towards his physicality and independence.

Nowadays, it is often possible to meet later training in neatness (after three to four years), underdevelopment of self-service skills (at four or five years old, children do not know how to dress, lace up their shoes, etc.). Independent walks of the child with peers (up to 12-13 years old) have become completely impossible. Everything is done in order to make life easier for the baby, to protect him from all risks, efforts and difficulties. The trend towards making life easier for children has reached its maximum expression. Toys completely contain everything necessary for use (for example, a dog is attached to a doll, and a leash, a bowl, toy food, a house, etc.). You don't have to invent and invent anything. Even blowing bubbles, you no longer need to blow, but you can simply press a button and they will fly by themselves. There are many examples of such a facilitation of children's life. As a result, the child simply has nowhere to show initiative and independence. Everything is ready to be consumed and used. Children have no space left for the manifestation of their independence, initiative in a broad sense.

Consumption exceeds needs

The abundance of goods and entertainment for children shapes the consumption mindset. There are about 500 toys in the children's room of a modern urban preschooler, of which only 6% are actually used by the child. The consumption mindset is being actively formed and strengthened by the expansion of modern media and video products for children.

The dominant occupation of preschoolers has become the viewing (consumption) of cartoons and computer games, the age addressing and developmental potential of which are, for the most part, highly questionable. Fast and bright video sequences, an abundance of loud sounds, flickering frames suppress the will and activity of the child, as if hypnotizing him, block his own activity. And, of course, computer games, "educational programs" and other "screen entertainment" have become a very serious problem of the present time. The computer has become for children not a means of obtaining information, but a source of sensory impressions, the consumption of which turns into an independent occupation. The introduction to digital technology begins as early as infancy (tablets for strollers are now being produced, which replace rattles for babies). The computer screen is increasingly replacing physical activity for kids, objective and productive activity, play, communication with close adults.

Deficit of movement and communication

All these trends, of course, are reflected in the peculiarities of the development of modern children. The first of them is underdevelopment of fine and gross motor skills. Movement and objective action is the first and practically the only form of manifestation of activity and independence in early childhood (up to three years). Such movements develop primarily in the actions of a child with objects or special toys (inserts, pyramids, lacing, etc.). The monotonous pressing of buttons and keys cannot compensate for the deficit in motor and sensory impressions.

Another characteristic feature of modern children is a lag in the development of speech. In recent years, both parents and teachers are increasingly complaining about delays in speech development: children begin to speak later, speak little and badly, their speech is poor and primitive. Special speech therapy help is needed in almost every kindergarten group. The fact is that modern children, for the most part, use too little speech in communicating with close adults. Much more often they absorb programs that do not require their response, do not respond to their attitude. Tired and silent parents are replaced by a loud and constantly talking screen. But the speech emanating from the screen remains an unintelligible set of other people's sounds, it does not become "one of our own." Therefore, children prefer to be silent or use shouts or gestures.

External colloquial speech is just the tip of the iceberg, behind which is a huge block of internal speech. After all, speech is not only a means of communication, but also a means of thinking, imagination, mastering one's behavior, it is a means of realizing one's experiences, one's behavior, consciousness of oneself in general. If there is no inner speech (and hence no inner life), the person remains extremely unstable and dependent on external influences. The inability to focus on the inner content and strive for some goal leads to an inner emptiness that must be constantly filled with something external. We can observe clear signs of the absence of this inner speech in many modern children.

Many teachers note a sharp decline in the imagination and creative activity of children. The tasks that were common 30–40 years ago (to compose a fairy tale, finish drawing, build something out of sticks) now cause serious difficulties. Children lose the ability and desire to occupy themselves with something, do not make efforts to invent new games, to create their own imaginary world.

Primitive games don't teach self-reliance

The lack of activity and independence of modern preschoolers is clearly manifested in a decrease in the level of plot play. It is this child's activity that determines the development of imagination, self-awareness, and communication skills. However, the level of play of modern preschoolers has dropped significantly. Developed, full-fledged play (with roles, with expressive play actions, with vivid emotional involvement of children, etc.), which 40 years ago was the norm for the development of preschoolers, is now less and less common. Children's games have become formal, fragmented, primitive. But this is practically the only area where a preschooler can show his initiative and creative activity.

According to our data, in 60% of modern senior preschoolers, play is reduced to primitive actions with toys (dressing up dolls, driving cars, shooting games, etc.). The creation of an imaginary situation and detailed plots are found in only 5% of children.

In play, children learn to control and evaluate themselves, understand what they are doing, and, most importantly, want to act correctly. Not being able to play fully and independently, children cannot independently - meaningfully and creatively - occupy themselves. Left without adult guidance and without a tablet, they don't know what to do and literally lose themselves.

Scattered and withdrawn

Recently, teachers and psychologists have increasingly noted in children the inability to concentrate on any activity, the lack of interest in the work. Such children are quickly distracted, switch, feverishly strive to change impressions, but they also perceive various impressions superficially and fragmentarily. Research data directly links these symptoms to television or computer exposure. Children who are accustomed to spending time in front of the screen need constant external stimulation.

At school age, it became difficult for many children to perceive information by ear: they are not able to retain the previous phrase in their memory and connect individual sentences, understand the meaning of the text. Hearing speech does not evoke images and lasting impressions in them. For the same reason, it is difficult for them to read: understanding individual words and short sentences, they cannot hold and connect them, which is why they do not understand the text as a whole. Therefore, they are simply not interested, it is boring to read even the best children's books.

Many parents and teachers also note a decrease in the communicative activity of children. They are not interested in communicating, they cannot occupy themselves, come up with a joint game. Even on children's parties, the organization of their games has to be done by an adult. For birthdays, many parents hire animators or entertainers, which has never happened before. Without this, children prefer to engage with their phones or tablets. Of course, not all children have the listed "symptoms" in full. But the trends in changing the psychology of modern children are quite obvious.

Undeveloped personality

Summarizing, we can say that modern children suffer, first of all, the ability to build an internal plan of action and volitional qualities: purposefulness, independence, perseverance, which constitute the core of the personality. With a sufficiently high level of awareness, mental development and technical literacy, they remain passive, dependent and dependent on adults and on external circumstances.

The attitude of adults (parents and teachers) to early development, which is understood exclusively as "learning", inhibits the development of the child's personality. Classes that train memory, "perseverance", motor skills and sensing, completely ignore, and sometimes suppress the will of the child, but, as many teachers believe, develop arbitrariness (that is, perseverance, obedience, organization, etc.). Preschoolers really obediently sit in the classroom. However, such "forced" arbitrariness exists only in the case of external control. In the absence of adult supervision and guidance, children return to impulsive activity and complete helplessness. Subjectively insignificant knowledge and skills are not assimilated and do not develop the child's personality.

Children need to open up the adult world

A very important law of a child's development lies in the advance development of meanings in comparison with knowledge and skills. First, a child must want to do something, discover his own, personal meaning, and only then, on this basis, master specific knowledge and skills. In other words, at first the meanings and motives of activity are mastered, and only then (and on their basis) - the technical side of actions (knowledge and skills).

Unfortunately, adults - both parents and teachers - often violate this law and try to teach a child something that has no meaning for him, no personal significance. Not being able to convey to children the meanings and motives of the activity, they actively pass on to them skills and abilities that remain meaningless to them. The personality of the child, his interests and needs are only adding up. How exactly they are formed depends largely on the environment that adults create.

The main problem of modern childhood is the distance between the world of children and the world of adults. Children, from four to five years old, live in their own subculture, which, although created by adults (modern toys, cartoons, computer games, etc.), is of little interest to them and often contradicts their value orientations. In turn, the world of adults (their professional activities, relationships, etc.) is closed to children. As a result, adults lose credibility for children and the means of influencing them. And what seemed natural a few decades ago is becoming a problem today.