#children tech

From Washington’s Top News they conducted a study to see how children using technology, suffer in communication skills. If a child uses technology as a substitute for talking, reading and interacting then their skills will not develop properly. Based on the survey they had conducted, parents aren’t putting a limit on technology use and it reflects upon the child. By age of 8, they don’t want to spend time with other people but rather just their technology device. 

In my opinion, I feel like this takes a point of view because it's coming from an older generation. The author explains how communication is decreasing because they’re having trouble with face to face contact. There is still a positive way how technology can help a child, like for example someone who is autistic. Technology can help those children who do have a disability in speaking or trouble to speak, to help them communicate better. 

If technology was introduced slowly to a child then there wouldn’t be much harm for the child. Communication is a big key in life, and if a child is able to be introduced to technology slowly, then there won’t be bigger consequences later on. Moderation is key if no moderation then there will be consequences that will affect a child’s ability to communicate at their age. 

Being social can be determined in various ways, in communications or interactions with what is around a person. Children are naturally skilled to learn, interact and develop their social skills. However, technology has reduced a child's social skills because their attention is not placed outdoors but indoors in front of a screen. They don't understand or may not comprehend what is appropriate in certain situations at gatherings. 

It's sad to see how technology is increasingly overtaking a child's social skills and ability to interact with others. Although they a child may be communicating when they don't have their device, it's still more common for them to use the device and click a button to try to get to some they are talking to. Communicating through facetime vs. communicating face to face is still very different because you don't always get to see their body language, facial expressions or vocal reactions. Without those certain cues, a child growing up may not know the differences.

Technology can have a positive and negative effect on children.  The negative effects that a child can go through is a shortened attention span. Not only has it been affecting children but adults as well. There are studies showing that a child is distracted when in front of them are networked tablets or some sort of technological device. Younger generations don't have much experience when it comes to communicating through webcam, this hurt's a child's social lives because they will want to experience it earlier on. Technology isn't going anywhere so it's better to introduce networked tablets at an older age rather than younger. A lack of face-to-face communication for a child is also unhealthy because the child won't know certain social cues or even how a person's emotion is based on their attitude or facial expressions. If they don't make eye contact daily then the emotional connection will fall through and it will be harder for the child to regain that.

Having a tablet or networked device that has a camera on it can encourage a child to speak out more and socially interact with another person on the other line. It also helps a child to adapt to new skills and make it easier for them to tell an adult what they want to talk about or learn about. It may not always be a good thing to be on the tablet for countless hours in the day but even just a few hours there are still some positive effects it can have on the child. Also if you teach a child the correct way to use the technology, then it won’t be too bad because you can still limit what they see or say. 

Smartphone and tablet’s have both good and bad effects, but we mostly hear about the bad effects it has. A study was shown that if a child were to sleep next to their smartphone, then on average they would only have 20 or so minutes less sleep than a child who didn’t. Something good though about a tablet for a child is that it has an opportunity for a child to be able to learn at an earlier age. It can also help with a communication socially through facetime or through any type of webcam communication.