How do electronic technologies influence child development?
The question is taken more seriously every day, giving rise to still more questions. Are they electronic intruders in your family?
Does your kid interact with tablet and smart phone more often than you? Is TV taking its toll on your child?
Kids love imagination. They are apt to be absorbed in imaginary worlds. They play whatever role they aspire, they make friends with imaginary characters. They hop on your back and see you as their horse. It seems the virtual world is theirs to conquer.
But how far should this virtual world come forward? Do you have to set rules and boundaries? How carefully can you monitor the kids? Get over it; the kids are always smarter than you.
What you can do is to set an example in order to set rules. If the TV is always on in your house, if you put your handheld device - whatever name you give to it - on the dinner table, you are implying that the virtual world is always there; and we should keep a constant, electronic watch.
According to the Article ‘Background Television in Homes of US Children’ by Matthew A. Lapierre, Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, and Deborah L. Linebarger, published in the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the background TV, the unattended TV left on in the house, is linked to shorter attention spans, lower quality parent-child interactions, and poorer academic performance, but the research on this topic is still in the early stages.
