TECH EDUCATION

9 Negative Effects of Technology on Children

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Now the way technology will have an effect on an adult is not the same it will with a child. This is because they are not yet able of making life decisions about their lives and what they choose to learn as compared to the adults. We should not forget that it has played a very important role in altering the way our children of today learn, interact with friends, get entertained, how they behave in society and impacted their level of creativeness. This is because they use a lot more technology as compared to the kids in the 1990’s. This is because there are very many technological tools for kids today developed by technical companies. This technology comes with its positive and negative side to the children. Like for instance in the past most kids were all about outdoor games, but today most kids stay locked in these technological tools and therefore it has affected their ability to learn and also have real entertainment with their friends. So, our roles as parents is to guide and set time limits to these children while we give them the technological tools such as video games, ipads, computers and so forth. But now the problem is children have become so addictive especially to the video games and some of them have become victims to predators over the internet and no longer have time to interact with their peers. This has therefore led to increase in cases of loneliness and depression among some children. Now with all that said, let’s go ahead and look at some of these effects of technology on children today;

 

  1. Physical, behavioral and psychological disorders: there has been a Huffington post explaining that the overuse of technology especially tools like ipods, ipads, video games, cell phones, internet and so forth has greatly affected children today. Usually children that are addicted or spend most of their free times on such tools tend to develop a range of behavioral, physical and psychological disorders over time. Some of these disorders might include ADHD, learning disorders, autism, coordination disorder and other developmental delays. So if you are a parent and have a child in the preoperational stage and you want them to achieve a healthy development then you must make sure they incorporate movement, exposure to nature and human connection. This is because; most often when a child is exposed to electronic tools then they will definitely be distracted from the outside world plus all the people that surround them. It has been proven that when children are using technology then their visual and auditory sense turn out to be overly stimulated and yet the vestibular, tactile and attachment system will be under stimulated. We should remember that the vestibular is the one that is responsible for balance and therefore, if the children are overly reliable to these technological tools then it will be hard to obtain this balance. The proprioceptive tactile is responsible for involving the touch sense and the reaction of the stimuli once in contact with another individual or animal. The only way a child can achieve this is when they play outdoors with their other peers, siblings or pets.
  2. Persuasive advertisements online expose them to risks: the internet today is filled with a lot of persuasive advertisements that these kids can get exposed to and lure them to take on some risky behaviors. There are a lot of videos and other humor sites that have been developed purposely for adult entertainment nevertheless the children can just make use of Google and search the site and get exposed to this kind of adult entertainment. There are other risk behaviors like unprotected sex, drug use, drinking and so much more that are promoted on some of these sites and because a kid doesn’t understand some of the dangers of these things, they might think it’s alright for them…after all others are doing it! Now if you are a parent, then the only way you can prevent this is through noting the child’s behavior both offline and online. Make sure that you block access to some of these adult sites and other related ones because it is most likely to be harmful to your child because kids want to copy majority of the things done by adults. However if you don’t have any technical experience on ways in which you can block these sites then you can contact a technician to assist you.
  3. Makes a child overweight: some of the effects of technology on children are that it can inflict on them some health issues like fattening and thereby becoming overweight. This is because most of the children that spend a lot of time in technology don’t get involved in any fitness activities and even if they do, it’s usually not enough for the body. This way they will eat a lot especially snacks while playing video, watching television, computers and so much more instead of performing some activities like outdoor games, housework and so forth. Now this is how the fats in the body are accumulated and slowly the child will become overweight. You know the thing with gaining weight is that it is so simple while on the other hand losing it can really be so difficult and stressful. Being overweight can lead to a number of other complications like for instance can cause, depression, heart failure and diabetes and yet these diseases are costly to treat. Now in such a scenario, your role as a parent or guardian is to develop schedules for the children in which they can do exercises during the day to keep their bodies fit but make sure you don’t completely ban technology otherwise they might rebel and use it secretly. You should also start to have more time with them by getting involved in games, swimming, ride a bike, play with pets with them and other activities to distract them.
  4. Frustration among children: can you imagine a child being frustrated? Well, I wouldn’t want to imagine that because children are supposed to enjoy their childhoods and just be children not get frustrated at such an early age over worldly things….technology in this case! Now the frustration comes in when you tell them to leave their technology for a while and get involved in other activities like performing house chores, taking the trash out and so on. This usually if not controlled leads to an aggressive behavior and impatience and thereby causes a lot of tension especially within the family dynamic. You will even find some of them throwing tantrums or having behavioral issues due to a web page that contains delays while loading.
  5. Poor writing skills: as you might have noticed, most of the schools today have embraced and introduced technology in their classrooms like computers and this had led to a decline in writing skills for most of the children. This way when a child has to take notes, they will rather do it on the computers, laptops or tablets rather than paper and that is how they develop poor writing skills.
  6. Poor social skills: majority of the children that spend most of their time on technology either through playing video games, visiting social networks like facebook or watching television have very poor social skills. This is because they tend to spend most of their time alone rather than socializing physically with peers, siblings and their parents. This is a very bad effect because usually such kids find it very hard to deal with people when they grow up and this is really harmful to their lives and careers in the long run. These kids that are not social will have a very hard time trying to mix with the rest of the society and that is how most of them end up suffering from depressions that might lead to committing suicide. Now the only way in which parents can control this poor social skills is through taking the kids from an early age to play with other children at least once or twice a week. Also don’t just stop at that, but support them to make friends especially at school and encourage them to invite their friend’s home so that you can get to know the kind of friends your child has through spending some time with them.
  7. Led to poor academic performance: technology also in one way or the other has led to poor academic performance in some kids today. First of all, there are very many technological tools that have been developed today that these children have been exposed to. Therefore  most of them end up wasting a lot of time on these gadgets playing videos, surfing the internet and so much more instead of using it for more constructive work like educational research, reading and so on. You will even find that in schools whereby some of these technological gadgets are allowed in, kids tend to easily get distracted because instead of concentrating in class, they will instead by playing games or something or even thinking about the game they played ago or what they saw. In the end all the concentration is taken away and that is how they end up having very terrible academic performance. As a parent, teacher or guardian, you will need to control this from the early stages, like for instance if you are a teacher you can look for ways of making them concentrate like either through making the class fun or using technology to bring in real time illustrations that won’t get them bored. If you are a parent or guardian then you will have to create a time table and monitor it so that they follow….like set time for technology…for other activities and them for educational concentration as well.
  8. Has led to bad character: there is a growing number in children today that have developed very bad characters and majority of them are due to the effects of technology on the children. One thing we should never forget is that these children are the future of this world with some of them being future leaders. And that means if these children grow up with bad characters then how will the future be? There are quite a number of sites or even movies with rebellious people and some of them turn out to be inspirations to these children.  They tend to emulate what they are doing and then be disobedient not only to their parents but the school administrators, teachers and other leaders. They learn to bully other kids, steal and so much more and this if not controlled at an early stage can then lead to serious issues in the future.
  9. Leads to overload to visual and auditory sensory systems: one of the effects of technology that has highly affected children today is this very point. This has led to a sensory imbalance and therefore creating a big problem in the overall neurological development as the brains anatomy, pathways and chemistry turn out to be permanently altered and also impaired. Some of these television programs and video games have violence in them and when these children are exposed to them then they will be in a high state of stress and adrenalin because their bodies aren’t aware that what they are watching isn’t real. That is why majority of them that watch these things have reported persistent body sensations like overall shaking, general state of uneasiness and an increased heart rate and breathing. As a parent or guardian, you need to protect your child from such overload and look for the best ways in which you can lessen the amount of time they spend while using technology.

Conclusion:

One fact we can never forget is that technology is on an increase and almost revolves around everything we do but when it comes to our little ones, we should be careful what we feed them with…..lets protect them….not deny them from using technology!

 

 

Vanilla Farmer, Amazon Retailer & Tech Researcher. Yosaki is my personal blog but I'm working on some big tech project back doors. I will keep on posting various topics on things I have knowledge about.

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