How technology effects children

How technology effects babyrenTechnology is one of the principal driving forces of the future it is transforming our lives and influence our future at rates surprising in history, with profound implication which we lavt even begin to see or understand. In todays world we be plagued with technology. The technology which surrounds almost ein truthone in the modern society, is changing invariablyy day, and pee out forever be a staple in our lives. Kids in the current contemporaries atomic number 18 ena muchd with technology. Although perhaps it is non that they adore technology so much but the simple fact they admit never lived without. Technology has had a signifi quite a littlet effect on children that has brought on well-nigh concerns. Our common concern has been that although digital technology has boosted childrens talent for multitasking, their ability to process information deeply may be deteriorating (Carpenter, 2000). There is vast meat of technology in todays wo rld, but thither argon three main component of technology that is having the greatest adjoin on children motion-picture show lames, television/media, and information processing systems. The modern technologies we restrain today argon tremendously powerful they attract our genetic biases. The human brain is attracted to visually presented information. television set games, television, movies and computer programs argon all very visually oriented and therefore they magnetize and keep the attention of children.The technology which is just immediately beginning to be manipulated and harnessed is affecting the minds of small children and adolescents in ways that could be harmful.By far the largest concern of technology today is video games. There have been so many experiments and studies to try and figure out if video games have a negative or positive effect on our children. A growing consistence of interrogation is linking impetuous video game play to self-asserting cognitive , attitudes and carriages (D.A. Gentile, 2004). Video games buttocks obviously be dangerous for our children causing aggression, bad performances in instill and obesity. Although we understructuret blame all of these problems on the consumption of video games, there have been many studies to prove so. Boys do seem to be more attracted to video games than girls be, Adolescent girls played video games for an average of 5 hours a workweek whereas boys averaged 13 hours a week (D.A. Gentile, 2004).The effects of both unfounded and non-violent video game performing can be determined by the occur of time playing the video game and by the content of the games organism played. The content of the games being played could definitely have a factor in how a child performs in sh hold, and how aggressive they are towards peers and teachers. apparently if a child is playing hours upon hours of violent video games, this can lead to them acting out violence and having no consequences for it. If a child as wellk the time that they played video games a week and used that time to be engaged in reading, homework or even a creative activity wed have less issues with our childrens school performances. Parents should really be observeing how long their child is playing video games, but this doesnt forever and a day happen. A child who plays video games for long periods of time could too build up a social wall, become a loner. It is important for children to interact with other children in order to help contract their social skills, which without expiration charter it very difficult to make it in this world. At the age children start playing video games, it is hard for them to distinguish what is reality and what is not. So in approximately cases the violent acts in video games could make the child deliberate the world is a scary place.More than a thousand scientific studies and reviews cease that significant exposure to media, and video games of violence increase s the risk of aggressive behavior in certain children, desensitizes them to violence and makes them believe the world is a meaner and scarier place than it is (Tompkins, 2003). Children who are playing endless hours of video games are to a fault said to have less hobbies and activities, which may lead to obesity. Obesity in spring chicken children has become an consuming problem these days. They are now making fit video games such a Wii Fit, which involves actual movement and exercise. Video games uniform these are ex cubicleent curiously if your child just needs to play a video game. There are educational video games out now, more and more are surfacing. The amount of time children play these is completely different than the amount of time children are playing violent video games. Educational video games obviously can do a lot for your child, they can improve vocabulary, mathematics, and some fitness. So increasing the time they are interacting with educational video games is s aid to have a very positive effect on them.Even though they make video games with the intent to be entertaining, challenging and sometimes educational, most of them do include some form of violence. Recent content analysis of video games show that as many as 89% of games contain some violent content and that virtually half of the games include serious violent content towards other game characters (D.A. Gentile, 2004). It is now a kn have fact that playing violent video games increases aggressive behaviors, increases aggressive cognitive, increases aggressive emotions, decreases pro social behaviors and increases physiological arousal. So people do read that children who already have aggressive tendencies get therapy from playing violent video games. By releasing their aggression on playing a video game, they are less likely to be aggressive towards others. Then others believe that violent video games maybe even more harmful to the children who were characteristically aggressive al ready. Because violence is such an attractive part to a video game, companies will continue to keep selling violent video games, to make more money. Although now they do usually list the rating on the game, but whos to formulate that parents will take any interest in the rating. Most parents are to blame for their children playing violent video games, how else would they get the game? Parents need to be held responsible for the effects that violent video games have on our children, they need to be overseeing them more closely.Recent research has shown that connections between children playing violent video games can cause later aggressive behavioral problems. In retrospect studies have also shown a twelve percent increase in aggressive behavior after observance violent television as well (Tompkins, 2003). For many years it has been apart of the repercussions that television has on children. Now we have those special chips called V-chips to put in the TVs to block certain programs or channels. But who knows what your children are reflexion when they go to a friends house, or even at school. Exposing your children to some violence almost seems inevitable, everywhere we turn there is some kind of violence on some kind of new piece of technology. Endless hours of watching television may be thought of as somewhat entertaining to a child, but it has such negative effects on them. TV is consistently reinforcing gender-roles and stereotypes which isnt always a good thing to show our children. A child should be out running around, exploring their environment, participating in activities and sports. Children who view media violence are more likely to have increased feelings of hostility, decreased delirious response to the portrayal of violence and injury that lead to violent behavior through unreal (Tompkins, 2003).During the first 2 years of a childs life, the brain is at a critical developing period. Television can get in the way of a child exploring, learning and spending time interacting with their parents and other children. Having time to play with others helps kids develop the skills they need to grow cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally. If parents limit the television that their pre-school age child is watching it can be a good thing as long as what they are watching is educational or age appropriate. If you allow your children particularly ages 2-7 to watch shows or movies with scary monsters, they will remember those scary faces. Children this age have a hard time distinguishing between real and fantasy, so to tell them that monsters dont exist, wouldnt really console them. speckle kids 8-12 are usually scared by natural disasters, the threat of violence and victimization of kids. Many shows or movies now a days depict risky behaviors, such as sex and substance abuse. They portray these things as cool, fun and exciting, and there is often no word about the consequences of these actions. More and more now we are see ing alcohol ads on television, and more underage children are being exposed to them. Over lx percent of television shows being shown in prime time contain some form of violence (Tompkins, 2003). They are now linking child obesity to everyplace watching of television which includes four or more hours a day. While watching television kids are usually inactive and usually snacking. Kids are getting overwhelmed with the many ads on television encouraging them to eat unhealthy foods. The ads are meant to target children, by showing sugary cereal, or sugar filled well-situated drinks. Children are being manipulated by advertising companies, so then they beg and plead with their parents to buy them exactly what they have seen on television. In another regard of preschoolers (ages 1-4), a childs risk of being overweight increased by 6% for every hour of television watched per day. If that child had a TV in his or her bedroom, the odds of being overweight jumped an additional 31% for ev ery hour watched. Preschool children with TVs in their bedroom watched an additional 4.8 hours of TV or videos every week(Dennison, 2002). Parents should treat watching television as a privilege, maybe not allowing television in their childs room will help reduce the percentage of overweight children. Its simple, reduce the amount of time your children are doing nothing with their minds or body, and increase the amount of time they are exploring things and participating in physical activities. So over all its unpatterned that watching too much television isnt healthy for any child of any age, or even any adult.While boys tend to be more attracted to violence on television, girls tend to be more attracted to the teeny bopper shows. Some of these shows include situations that are not likely to ever happen, or that are too mature for the child whose watching them. The image that most female television/movie stars, and models are giving to young girls is that the skinner you are the be tter. We are in a vein world, where somehow everyone got the impression that its not alright to look healthy, better to be overly skinny. Eating disorder experts say prepubescent girls are developing eating disorders as young as 5 and 6 years old. They may be getting their obsession from parents who are preoccupied with their own body images, and media images of skinny stars like the Olsen twins, or even Kiera Knightly, whom stars in a very popular movie series Pirates of the Caribbean. Which is a movie directed towards the junior crowd, considering it is a Disney movie. If we take a look at the figure of Barbie, whos body is considered to be perfect, yet no girl or woman could achieve a body like this, this figure is a definition of beautiful. Unfortunately the solitary(prenominal) way to help change the outlook of body images is to help our children know its ok to be a different shape than someone else, to teach them its not okay to poke or make fun of children who are bigger si zes. This is not something we need to change just for our children but also for ourselves and our world.Some programs that may seem age appropriate for our children, are still showing some manner of sexual activity. Young girls are getting the image that it is okay to engage in some sort of sexual activity, even if that is just kissing. Some of these shows are saying that having a relationship at a young age is okay, kids need to be kids and not worry about relationships until they have at least approached puberty. Blaming only television and technology for these acts is unfair, because parents have a lot of effect on their children as well. Children are just getting the wrong message from a lot of these shows, that premarital sex is the thing to do, that even something as simple as kissing is okay. This all depends on the age of the child, some parents need to make sure that the shows their child is watching is age appropriate. Maybe some parents need to watch a couple of minutes of the show their child wants to watch and get the feeling, and voice of the show to determine whether its appropriate for their child.Children are natural manipulators of the world-they learn through controlling the movement of and interaction between objects in their world dolls, blocks, defraud cars, and their own bodies. With television, they watch and do not control anything, computers allow interaction. Children can control the pace and activity and make things happen on computers (Perry, 1999). Computers are meet apart of everyones daily lives. We have them at work, home and even at school in childrens class rooms. Computers like all technology have their pros and cons. Obviously the computer can open up a world of intelligence for children, you can look up and explore anything you want on the profit. Studies indicate that the media can promote pro-social behavior, that some computer games can hone visual intelligence and that classroom use of the internet links children wi th distant mentors and resources, enriching the way kids learn (Carpenter, 2000). Computers are now being used as a learning tool, we have access to them, we might as well try and use them for good. Technology offers children a sense of empowerment and provides kids with the tools needed to solve problems (Goessl, 2002-2008). Educational websites, and games are at the reach of our childrens hands, not to mention if they want to know everything to know about Alaska, or who holds the record for chewing gum the longest, they can. Computers can have a great influence on developing hand- eye coordination, since it does take this skill to type and use a mouse. But still the time they spend on the computer should be limited, because kids still need social interaction, and physical activity. We must encourage our children to develop the ability to think first and then give them a computer (Fanning, 2007).Even though we can see many positive outcomes from children using computers, there are also many negative views. Computers are being introduced to children younger and younger these days. Which is making our children lazy, they can now type papers that automatically hug drug check for them, they dont even have to go to the library to do a research paper, the computer puts all information at a click of the mouse. While it is a nice way for children to communicate with their friends, whatever happen to hand writing a note. Our kids are talk of the town in chat rooms, to who knows, they could be talking to a sexual predator. We have seen this in many cases, the world is such a crazy place and we have to do the best to protect our children from it. Hours and hours of computer use can also be physically damaging to children causing bad posture, hand problems and can effect their eye sight. A child who is always on the computer can cause a lack of social skills. Children need interactive time with peers and adults to really develop correctly. On the computer our children can come across things that arent age appropriate for them such as violence, and sex. All they have to do is type in a word and somehow it can be referenced to sex, and link them to a pornography site.Computers are now being linked to as a factor to anti-social behaviors, primarily because computers are replace normal social activities. Anti-social personality disorder is characterized as a gross disparity between behavior and the prevailing social norms. Children who constantly use the internet as a form of socializing can develop social anxiety disorder or a internet addiction. You may think that young children cant have an internet addiction, but today it is becoming more common. Some children would rather rush home and get onto the internet rather than go play outside with friends or do a creative activity with their parents. Children are isolating themselves from the real world with the excessive use of computers. They are only knowing the web world.Some may not realize it but cell mobilizes do have an effect on our children. In fact they say that children under the age of 8 shouldnt even use one. Cell phones can not only cause brain tumors, but also impaired cognitive functions. Scientist have now discovered that even a two-minute cell phone call can alter the electrical activity of a childs brain for up to an hour after the phone call. This finding has lead many doctors to believe that the disruption in brain activity can lead to psychiatric and behavior problems and can impair learning ability. The alteration in brain waves can lead to aggressive behaviors, lack of ability to learn and memory loss. A show found that children who used cell phones, and whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy were 80 percent more likely to have behavioral problems such as emotional symptoms, inattention, hyperactivity and problems with peers compared with children who had no cell phone exposure as fetuses or in early childhood. Children whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy but who had no other cell phone exposure were 54 percent more likely to have behavioral problems (Roan, 2008). Excessive cell phone usage can also be linked to an earlier onset of Alzheimers disease. Many parents have no idea how a cell phone isimpacting your childs brain. Some scientist have found that cell phone transmissions damage the ability of white blood cells to ward off infectious diseases by disrupting the immune systems electromagnetic communications. The biophysicist from Lincoln University in Christ Church, New Zealand has also found that cell phones can murderously modify moods. In brains and bodies seriously derailed by tiny imbalances in trace minerals and hormones, depression, suicide, anger, rage and violence can result when calcium and serotonin levels are disrupted by cell phone transmissions (Thomas, 2004). Its amazing that all of this time we have been exposing our children to something that is unrecognizably harmful to them.As we can al l recognize, technology today is vastly growing, and is out of our hands. What we do have control over is how much of that technology we expose our children to. It is inevitably up to the parents to monitor and react to the technology being used by their children. This may not seem very serious to some parents, but more and more we are seeing children, young adults walking into their classrooms and shooting theirs peers and teachers. All because maybe they played one too many violent video games growing up, or have felt like an out-cast due to a social-anxiety disorder which can be caused by dissocializing yourself with video games, computers and even television. Even though not one research conducted could really prove either positive or negative long term outcomes of technology, it is apparent that technology does have a great effect on our childrens lives and developmental behaviors. Technology has many effects on our children today, but how couldnt it when our society is transfo rming into a technology world. Children these days will never know what life is like without technology so it is important to make sure we use the technology we have for what its worth. Although there are many negatives to the use of technology, we need to embrace the ever changing world, and just learn as parents to pay attention to what our child is doing.Works CitedCarpenter, Siri, 2000. In Digital Age, Experts Pause to Examine Effects On Kids. http//www.apa-org/monitor/dec00/digital.htmlEmele, Love, 2002-2008. Technology Its Effects on Children. http//www.helium.com/items/392511Fanning MD, Iris, 2007. Television Computer Effects on Learning and Emotional Intelligence. http//ezinearticles.comGentile et al, D.A., 2004. The Effects of Violent Video Game Habits on Adolescent Hostility, Aggressive Behaviors, and School Performance. Journal of Adolescence 27. http//www.sciencedirect.comGoessl, Leigh, 2002-2008. Technology Its Effects on Children. http//www.helium.com/items/613503Lehm ann, Max. 2002-2008. Technology Its Effects on Children. http//www.helium.com/items/361089McCormick, 2008. Side Effects of Cell Phone. http//www.southcoasttoday.comPerry, Bruce, 1999. ECT wonder Bruce Perry Discusses the Effects of Technology on the Brain. http//content-scholastic.comScience Daily, 2007. Most Middle- School Boys and Girls Play Violent Video Games. http//www.sciencedaily.comThomas, William, 2004. Cell Phone Health Effects/ Busy Signals. http//willthomas.net/investigations/articles/cellphones.htmlThompkins, Aimee, 2003. The psychological Effects of Violent Media on Children. http//allpsych.com/journal/violentmedia.html