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The influence of technology in development of children.

Only 20 years ago, children played outdoors all day, rode bicycles, played sports and built cabins. The children from before, with their mastery of imaginary games, created their own way of having fun, which did not need expensive equipment or parental supervision. Before children moved a lot and their sensory world was natural and simple. Twenty years ago, families spent a lot of time cleaning and working at home, and children had obligations to fulfill on a daily basis.

Today families are different. The influence of technology in a family of the 21st century is fracturing its base and  it is causing a disintegration of the fundamental values that long ago were what united families. Parents have to juggle school, work, home and social life, and rely on communication, information and transportation technologies to achieve faster and more efficient lives. Entertainment technologies (television, internet, video games, iPads, mobile phones) have advanced so rapidly that families have barely noticed the enormous effect and the great changes they have had on their family structure and lifestyle.

A study carried out in 2010 by the Kaiser Foundation showed that children of primary age consume an average of 7.5 hours a day of entertainment technologies, 75% of them have television in their bedroom, and 50% of children American homes have television on all day. There is no conversation about dinner, replaced by the big screen and takeaway.

Children use technology for most of their games, which reduces the challenges for their creativity and imagination as well as the obstacles necessary for their body to acquire optimal sensory and motor development. Sedentary bodies and bombarded with chaotic sensory stimuli generate delays in the fulfillment of the stages of child development, with the consequent negative repercussions on the skills essential for literacy. The young people of today, prepared from the beginning for speed, arrive at school with problems in their capacity for self-regulation and attention, these two elements are necessary to learn, and that in the end end up being important problems of behavior control for teachers in Classroom.
        

What, then, is the influence of technology on the child's development? From the biological point of view, the child's sensory, motor and attachment systems, in full development, have not evolved to encompass the sedentary but crazy and chaotic character of current technology. The influence of technology and its rapid advances in child development includes an increase in physical, physiological and behavioral disorders that educational and health systems are just beginning to discover and, of course, do not yet understand. Childhood obesity and diabetes are already national epidemics in Canada and the United States, and their causes are related to the excessive use of technologies.

There are diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, coordination disorder, developmental delays, unintelligible speech, learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depression and sleep disorders associated with excessive use of technologies and in alarming increase. A more detailed look at the crucial factors to meet the stages of development and the effects of technologies on those factors would help parents, educators and healthcare professionals to better understand the complexities of this issue and to build effective strategies to reduce the use of technology.

Four critical and necessary factors for a healthy development of the child are movement, touch, human connection and contact with nature. These types of sensory contributions guarantee the normal development of the posture, the bilateral coordination, the optimal states of excitation and the self-regulation needed to acquire the necessary bases for schooling. Young children need two or three hours a day of active games to acquire appropriate sensory stimulation of their vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems. The tactile stimulation received by touching, hugging and playing is essential for the development of praxis, the planned patterns of movement. In addition, touch activates the parasympathetic system, which decreases cortisol, adrenaline and anxiety. Nature and green spaces not only exert a reassuring influence but also restore attention and promote learning.

We must largely control the use of technologies in children so that they do not know how to control the phone or video game better than getting on a slide or spending the day running from one side to another. Lunches and dinners should be in family with the television turned off and talking about how the day was.

In short, technology has made many advances but in children I think they are almost all disadvantages.