Gadgets and young children: action research

 iPhones, iPhones, and finally, do tablets and smartphones distract children from something moreimportant for their growth and development, such as free play?

Another smart tool?

Children learn through their senses during first 5 years of life. Tablets engage hearing, sight andtouch. Since most children are visual learners (meaning they perceive new information well with thehelp of vision), learning apps for tablets and smartphones contain as a minimum text and lots ofimages. During my little experiment in kinder room, I noticed that the iPad is good for learning newsounds, words and animal names. Thanks to the presence of pronunciation and high-qualitypictures, it helps young children to associate a symbol of commonplace objects with their names. Inother words, it develops symbolic thinking.On many occasions, a tablet helped meto extend on children’s conceptual understanding of thesubject matter or a topic of interest, by simply popping up a picture on the screen. For example,‘…the echidna who eats termites’. Google it – and the picture is ready.

What do children actually learn with tablets?Fine motor skills

Tablet touchscreen and button pushing develop fine motor skills. Not to the same extent as sensoryexperiences, like playing with playdough, sand and water though, as the range of movements arequite limited. For example, in one game of Bugs and Buttons (bugs and beads) an ant must becarried into his house.It’s a difficult real-life task for a three-year-old to perform, but with fingers onthe screen, one can readily do it.

Handle with care

Children learn to handlean expensive “device” with care, gently place it on pillows, hold it with bothhands, walk slowly. All this does not happen immediately, but they learn fast.

Sharing

Children are supposed to share the classroom tablet and take turns on iPad for 5 minutes according to the set timer. Having a timer helps to keep an eye on the minutes, find out the time and wait for their turn, which is an important social skill.

Cause and effect 

It’s no secret that preschool children love to manipulate objects and are hands-on learners – this gives them a sense of control. Tablets allow children to drag and drop, to rotate objects and swipe.To some extent, this can be considered as learning about cause and effect (part of cognitive development).

Concentration

Children can lose hours interacting with the device, given they enjoy the app or game they areplaying. And, of course, if they are allowed to. The presence of levels and different tasks, as I noticed during my action research, increases concentration.

Skills integration

Letters, numbers, and everything that Glenn Doman called “bits of information” is easily digestedusing the game on the tablet. But the child is unlikely to start talking using a tablet. Reading trainingprograms are good aid for reinforcing reading skills, recognizing letters and written strokes.

What about adverse effects?

Any device, be it a TV, computer, or phone, a tablet can be abused, if used as an attempt to babysit achild. Here, it seems to me, a person must be extremely honest with oneself. When I stayed at homewith a sick child, and had work, I would often turn on his favorite cartoons to keep him occupied.Because I had no options as work was pressing. Today smartphones and tablets help parents out inqueues, in traffic jams, on long flights, and in this trend, in my opinion, there is nothing catastrophic, just an electronic nipple.The observations of my group of pre-schoolers suggest that the uncontrolled use of electronicdevices has obvious drawbacks…

Passive vs Active play

Playing with a tablet- like reading a book – is a sedentary activity. Children have active bodies withrequirement for rigorous physical play throughout the day (up to 3-5 hours). While on iPad, theobserved children mostly hunch over the device, with occasional change of their postures.Nevertheless, they have spent a long time in the same position. As movement is one of the keycomponent in development of children’ bodies and brains,too much screen time deprives the childof this“precious” time. Therefore, in the interests of the child’s physical development, screen timeshould be limited.

Overstimulation

During the first two weeks of the experiment with a permanent classroom iPad, some sensitivechildren cried when the tablet was taken away. They refused to eat, and I had to remove the device from the room for several days to reduce the tension.Children found it hard to adapt to the “ iPad rules” (limited time, set time for iPad). It interrupted our smoothly run routines. Sound effects, loud app music and flickering pictures can easily tire a child. In addition, some children may be at risk of a gaming addiction.

Impact on social and communication skills

Although the children gather in a circle to play on the tablet and discuss the games they played, this does not replace real communication with people; parents and other children. Real life communication and interactions develop language, empathy and social skills. The famous developmental theorist Lev Vygotsky believed that learning is most effective in a social environment and happens through participation in meaningful activities and through play. Gardening with a grandfather or reading a book with mum have more developmental potential for a young child, than any electronics. If a smartphone and tablet stand in the way of live communication, you should think about whether it is necessary.

My son has grown surrounded by a wide variety of devices from the day one, because I am a geek person myself. However, a single experiment in a kindergarten room over two months demonstrated that the tablet has a play in a child’s life and is useful only when is not a “ digital ”nanny, and the contact time with these devices is limited.