Technology Woes

An article in the June 11 Olney Enterprise discussed child development. COVID and digital devices were discussed. And I have an opinion to express.

I wasn’t exposed to computers until I was an adult. It’s really nice for distant communication with family, friends, and business.

But my husband and I have talked about how detrimental computers, cell phones, and game platforms can be to children.

When it was obvious that computers would help our children with homework and projects, such as composing reports for school, we finally invested in a computer. The children ranged from 4th to 10th grades.

I must admit, I really enjoyed being able to email family and friends I’d not spoken or written to in a long time. And my journaling was quicker than having to handwrite in a notebook. Writing for the Enterprise is easier than even the old typewriter because I don’t have to physically erase what I want to change, or simply start over, wasting the paper.

But my husband and I had decided before personal computers were available that we wanted to limit the children’s time in front of a screen. They played outside or in their rooms. They watched television with us, and we were careful about what we all watched on TV.

Many of our children’s classmates had access to video games. We refused to purchase one for them. Mainly because they were so expensive, plus we had only one television! Our son had friends who did own them, and he often visited and played games, but at least that meant communicating with humans, not just the screen.

Video games can be useful to a point. But when the game’s object is to reach a “new level” with animated violence, children see violence to which they don’t need to be exposed.

The problem with the handy cell phones or tablets is that parents use them as “pacifiers” for children to be occupied. Unfortunately, many parents spend so much time on their phones that they don’t communicate with their children. And when visiting friends or family, attending a sporting event, even going to church, they often hand their child a device to keep them from interrupting. Some parents even go so far as to purchase phones for each child!

Children don’t learn to participate in a discussion because they haven’t learned how conversation works.

Then there’s the COVID issue of computers. Yes, with the “lockdown” of society due to the virus, education could continue via computers. But what was the quality of that education? When students went back to the brick-and-mortar schools, they were presented with computer curricula and few, if any, actual books.

Teachers used to tell math students they needed to learn “math facts”, how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide because an adding machine or calculator couldn’t fit in your pocket. Now, everyone with a phone has a calculator in their pocket. But did they learn how to use a calculator to figure the basic, everyday mathematics that I use in my head so I don’t have to stop, pick up the calculator/ cell phone - the tools are in my brain because I learned the basic math facts and know how to use them. It also helped that I seem to have inherited my dad’s “math genes”.

We host Sunday dinners after church most of the time. Though there are phones at the table, they’re not used when the meal is being consumed. Our son is sometimes “on call” with work and must serve the company’s customers when they need help. And once the main meal is over, often there will be things shared as we continue to sit around the table and TALK about a multitude of subjects.

Sunday dinner over, I do the dishes and listen to the goings on around me. Board games like checkers, Candy Land, and a memory game I downloaded and printed are some of those games. It gave me great pleasure to watch my 14-year-old granddaughter teaching my 8-year-old grandson to play chess!

We are very proud of our children and their strict rules concerning devices. We invested in cell phones as the children started driving. They were supposed to have them on all the time they were out and about, just in case they had an emergency, or if I needed a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread, they could pick it up on the way home.

That’s pretty much how our son has handled his children, plus there is also the 360 app that he uses to keep track of where they are. Our daughter’s boys have tablets, but their daily time on the screens is limited.

And our youngest grandchildren are limited to only 15 minutes of television before heading up to bed, where their parents read books to them and have taught them prayers for bedtime.

Parents, help your children with their social maturity. No device meals, for example. Read to them. Watch movies with them. Listen to music with them. Anything to keep their minds learning how to communicate.