False Promise
Parking your child in front of the computer may seem like a good idea, but think again
Perched in his mother's lap, Jonathan Foldi taps on the keyboard. "Car starts with the letter C," says the pleasant computer-synthesized voice as a red roadster zips around the screen, and Jonathan stares, transfixed, ignoring the toy trucks, plastic balls, and rocking horse that cover the hardwood floors of his suburban Maryland home. His mouth open in wonder, Jonathan pecks another letter, and another. At the age of 13 months, he's already familiar with JumpStart Toddlers and several other computer games, all designed for kids under 2. Wire racks set up beside him hold more than 20 others, the collection of his 4-year-old brother, Matthew.
This is the face of childhood, circa 2000: Parents have been told that it's their responsibility to prepare children for a multi-tasking, technology-driven future, so they "JumpStart" their babies, leave 6-year-olds in the care of Carmen Sandiego, and tutor third graders on the finer points of PowerPoint presentations. Believing that starting earlier is starting better, they invest in "lapware" and special keyboards designed to withstand drool and tiny fists, and they stick children who aren't even forming sentences yet in front of computer screens. The idea: Buy the computer and the software, and the brain will grow. Without an early start, parents fear, their kids will fall so far behind they'll never catch up.
But a growing number of educators, child development experts, and doctors are beginning to speak out against early computer use, especially when coupled with regular television watching. Too much "screen time" at a young age, they say, may actually undermine the development of the critical skills that kids need to become successful, diminishing creativity and imagination, motivation, attention spans, and the desire to persevere.
Last week, some experts--including Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia; Harvard professor of psychiatry Alvin Poussaint; and noted child and adolescent psychiatrist Marilyn Benoit--went even further, putting their names to a petition calling for "an immediate moratorium on the further introduction of computers in early childhood and elementary education" until it can be determined what effect they have on young children. "The only way to do that is to slow down, look at the research and evaluate," says Pipher.
Early action. Keep kids away from computers? It seems to fly in the face of everything the 21st-century cyber-ready parent is told to believe. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study showed that on a typical day, 26 percent of 2- to 7-year-olds spent time on the computer, averaging 40 minutes. Matthew Foldi's parents started him playing on the computer at 8 months--partly as an alternative to the bland baby babble on Teletubbies but also, says his mother, Bonnie Glick, because "we spend so much time on the computer at work that it's important for kids to know this is part of the real world."
"Parents have been sold a bill of goods about how valuable these experiences are," says Frank Wilson, a neurologist and the author of The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. Wilson and other skeptics say that as a nation we leapt without looking, launching a grand experiment without doing any serious long-term studies on the possible developmental, behavioral, or physical effects early computer use has on kids. "Many of the answers won't play out for five, 10, or 20 years," says Michael Rich, coauthor of an American Academy of Pediatrics position paper that calls for some limits on screen time.
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