I didn't see this coming: now small children want real tech gadgets, not toy ones.
Predictably, some educators say that technology "stifles the imagination", however they figure that. Probably the same way some people claim porn causes rape. By emotional decision. (Factually rape statistics have fallen in any country were porn has been legalized.)
Quote:
"The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against screen time for children ages 2 and younger, and it recommends no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming on televisions or computers for older children."
I can hear the answer now: "don't worry, none of what my kids watch could be called quality programming."
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman said:
I am in favor of limiting some kinds of technology in schools, like the use of calculators which makes a lot of people - especially if they're not good at math already - too dependent and impairs their ability further.
Does anybody learn how to divide two numbers on paper anymore? I learned it before calculators, but I'd be hard pressed to try to do it now.
12 comments:
"Predictably, some educators say that technology "stifles the imagination", however they figure that."
I didn't notice too great an imagination in most people who lived before computers or at least before computers were found much in schools. It probably disappears mostly anyway after childhood, and technology's not to blame for that.
I am in favor of limiting some kinds of technology in schools, like the use of calculators which makes a lot of people - especially if they're not good at math already - too dependent and impairs their ability further.
You're very right about porn, and where prostitution has been legalized it's also had only positive results. Of course, if you're a man and you say you're in favor of legalizing that, then you know what most people are going to think about your reasons.
As I understand it, most television shows have a deleterious effect on the smallest kids' development of an attention span, since the TV is ever-rewarding and often much brighter and more vigorously changing than is the real world. I believe (though I cannot cite the statistics) this is pretty clearly proven by some legitmate studies.
Beyond that, however, I'm as ready to accept "technology" as beneficial to most people's intellects, as Eolake seems to be. Even those kids who are hooked on shoot-em-up video games turn out to have developed some amazing mental skills in the problem-solving and team-building aspects of the game, as long as the mental skills transfer.
In the question of education's relation to technology, I think what's probably most damaging is to have an underclass of people who are not familiar with certain mainstays of the workforce, such as the nature of wireless connections, how to boot, reboot, start, and learn a wordprocessor program, and how to work a mouse or type efficiently. Here in the USA we have a whole generation of kids who never touch any personal computer until they go attend a university or college, at which point they're likely miles behind their peers. Not so much in their ability to write the contents of a paper or to complete a laboratory assignment, as in their ability to present that item to the professor for eventual assessment.
To me, "technology" itself is a dangerous obsession because it can easily distract from mental development. As I study for The Big Test (tomorrow! eek!) I realize that 99% of my effective time has been spent sitting next to a reading lamp with nothing but pencil and printed pages in front of me. I can't imagine that any technological innovation, short of direct brain-wave transplants like in "Battlefield Earth," would ever help me to learn more better.
But that's not the use for which most technology is being advocated. The issue isn't one of developing certain mental skills which otherwise would be lacking, but rather of information-sharing. The people who use a Kindle or a laptop to read their books aren't, really, using new mental skills; but they're more closely in touch with the other people reading the same things.
For this reason, I think technology is less about rapidity or change of mentality, and more about rapidity or change of COMMUNICATION. It links people together. The most important advances of the "computer age," to me, haven't been in terms of keyboards, document manipulation, amazing on-screen graphical rearrangement, computer-assisted design, or even the simulations now possible to enhance by degrees of magnitude many scientific experiments. Rather, I think the big paradigm shift of the computer age is in communications.
People everywhere are stuck with the internet. There's no getting away from it. Even China has had to admit that all its citizens can now access every single word of the New York Times. Every single day. For the rest of their lives. The most distant hearts of the Sahara and Gobi have satellites overhead which upload your downloadable email. People phone home from the summit of Mount Everest to share the moment. (Or, in one tragic instance, to inform a loved one of impending death and thereby say goodbye.) More than ever we are hooked together.
This is likely a good thing, I really do believe. The more connections there are, the more we're "all of us" rather than "us and them."
"Here in the USA we have a whole generation of kids who never touch any personal computer until they go attend a university or college"
Surely any family who can afford college will also have a computer?
Ooh, you know Battlefield Earth? The film or the book? I was very disappointed in the movie, because I loved the book. (I was the editor on the Danish edition.)
Here in the USA we have a whole generation of kids who never touch any personal computer until they go attend a university or college
This doesn't sound like the USA I know. The opposite is true in my experience.
Good points, earlier, Hartman. I hope you stick around this blog, and will comment occasionally.
Kids feel difference between toys and real things. My older daughter had a hysterical outbreak when she was one year old and she saw a "real thing" - pliers while playing with about 10 dolls and crap like that. My younger daughter figured to use a knife to open a can of juice when she was two years old, so she managed to get it out from the locked cupboard while the knife was as big as herself...
Yes they know and they need real things. Toys are no more. Real things becoming toys promise real advancement for the future.
Interesting.
"My younger daughter figured to use a knife to open a can of juice when she was two years old"
*I* wouldn't be sure I could do that. How'd she do it?
From what I remember of being a kid, and experiencing a few kids at close quarters, I'd have to say the more real it is, the better it is accepted. However, necessity (or desire) seems to be the mother of invention.
I have seen that when a required item is not available, that item is magicked out of thin air, some old toilet rolls and a cereal box.
I have also seen a lot of special function toys swiftly fall into disuse because they are too special function.
As for exposure to TV, Radio and PC's, I have mixed feelings about it. I was 10 before we bought ourselves a Spectrum. I used to have binges of playing games. 4-6 hours straight, then weeks of doing other stuff.
By letting my kids use the camera we have an interesting record of our home, and it's inhabitants. Having a real digital camera (3.5MP) allowed us to just let the kids loose, and not have to pay $10 to find that film was just a two year old who got hold of the camera. The result of the digicam being available, and the PC,is that we have two kids making photo stories, and now at age 10, putting together stop motion films.
Watching TV? I just let the boys have some Thunderbirds DVD's. They now role play as the Tracey family, and we have built papier mache Tracy Islands, and we have Lego models of all the vehicles and crews! An hour of visual story telling has led them to many hours constuctive, creative play.
The PC. Oldest started on the PC at age 4. He was allowed to play in Word, then in "Kid Pix", which allowed clipart and free draw pictures to be put together. He used the text to speech tool to phonetically spell words when we finally told him to "work it out for yourself" after spelling 50 words for him. It was a great creative and learning tool for him.
By the time the younger was at that age we had adventure games, lots of problem solving embedded into the game play. Now they are doing too much action gaming. Still, the do like strategy games as well.
I think the only reason I'd give a toy version is if it was more rugged. A fisher price cassette player was more rugged than the comparably priced radio shack equivalent. However a consumer digicam far outperforms the kid version, and we need that for close up stop motion play.
As for suffering the web, why buy a $150 kid browser when you have a PC they can borrow, and learn for real. I did let them have a small footprint keyboard and trackball to get them started.
My only regret it that youngest did not get the benefit of the story tapes we have. The new car does not play tapes! Still, radio drama is one of those things you discover later in life.
....*I* wouldn't be sure I could do that. How'd she do it?...
And what's the problem? It's in the genes, really. I was fixing my mom's watch at the age of four with manicure scissors. How? I don't remember, but I fixed the watch! :-)
Quoting my US uncle about his young daughter: "That's the umpteenth digital camera she's ruined."
Adult tech toys are not designed to be child-proof yet. Although... aren't adults big kids, really? They just want wah bigger toy cars!
"don't worry, none of what my kids watch could be called quality programming."
Hear, hear... :-)
"I learned it before calculators, but I'd be hard pressed to try to do it now."
Only because you've been so long without practice. It'd come back to you very fast if you had to help with your children's homework.
I have the slightly obsessive-compulsive habit of trying to compute things mentally before eventually resorting to external silicon-based artificial intelligence (if you comprehend what I am verbosely articulating).
The human brain will never let you down just because you forgot to change the batteries. ;-)
Playing "how much can I manage without modern technology" may never become vital to your survival after a nuclear conflict, but you never know when you'll be in a plane crash in the middle of nowhere like Steve Fosset.
I think of it as maintaining what makes the pride of my species: adaptability. Staying reasonably physically fit instead of driving every time you go round the corner is also a good idea. I bet Sgt. Hartman will agree.
(And I agree with Eolake: any new voice with something relevant to say is enriching and welcome.)
Somehow, I feel that technology has helped EXPAND my own imagination, especially with the Internet, worldwide TV, videogames... all supports of information and ideas, essentially. And, another glum prognosis down the drain, kids still read today. I say comic books are a great incentive for acquiring reading skills, for those who are intimidated by big chunks of pictureless text. They never drove ME away from "serious" reading, anyway.
..."and where prostitution has been legalized it's also had only positive results."
It would certainly help make it a free choice, instead of a form of modern slavery in broad daylight. My problem is not with prostitutes, it's with mafia-related pimps and their abusive methods.
I'm a man, I've never been to the hookers, pretty sure I never will either, so I'll dare say I'm in favor of legalizing "that". Be it just for the sake human rights.
Also, I'll take a religious support from Jesus forgiving the prostitute and preventing her lapidation. :-)))
Like pretty much everything else, modern tech, calculators, TV, video games... need just be used sensibly and with some moderation. Who would dare say that the occasional glass of wine, once or twice a week, is in any way harmful (if you don't drive just afterwards)? I feel that religions strictly prohibiting all alcohol are going overboard, reminding of the Thirties' Prohibition (and how it went into big organized crime profits!). I never tried drugs, but I also feel that criminalizing their mere use is going too far. The law should treat it like booze: as an aggravating circumstance if you've misbehaved under influence, and mandatory treatment if -and only if- it becomes a will-suppressing addiction.
Guess that makes me a libertarian.
"I think what's probably most damaging is to have an underclass of people who are not familiar with certain mainstays of the workforce"
You're worried about people who aren't adapted to the world they live in, basically. I'm all with you there. Technology has helped greatly improve our lives. It can also help correct what's deteriorated in our lives. To cite but one example, Insulin today is super-safely produced from genetically modified bacteriae, instead of the partially-incompatible pig-harvested one.
"To me, "technology" itself is a dangerous obsession"
All things in moderation. Technology should remain a tool, a useful but not exclusive component of our lives today. I'm on this blog almost every day, but I may go two days without turning the TV on, not even to watch the news.
(My once strict-and-concerned father watches TV a lot more than I do today!!! :-)
Direct brain-wave transplants always sounded über-cool to me. But it's like calculators: no matter how useful, we need always remain able to do without them and learn by old-fashioned studying, by principle. Adaptability.
If a modern US city goes to Hades because of a one-hour power breakdown, then it is a giant with clay feet. Beirut could, has, and still is surviving just fine with electricity that may come and go up to 12 hours a day. It is essentially vital for powering the refrigerators, the rest is dispensable. Even (gasp!) air conditioning in the summer heatwaves.
"I think technology is less about rapidity or change of mentality, and more about rapidity or change of COMMUNICATION."
More communication is a good thing.
It can prevent wars, whether needless or avoidable. It is helping build the social pressure toward change in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia. It allows you to know how a guy born and raised in Lebanon may think like you... or differently. We can know about a tsunami in South-East Asia and donate for assisting them. Et caetera. "Big paradigm shift" indeed.
Of course, there's also spam advertising! :-P
"People everywhere are stuck with the internet."
You're saying this as if you were saying "people are stuck with alphabetization, vaccines and civic rights". ;-)
"Or, in one tragic instance, to inform a loved one of impending death and thereby say goodbye."
Tragic, definitely. But the chance to say farewell is precious too. Verily.
The more connections there are, the more we're "all of us" rather than "us and them."
This can never be bad. :-)))
"(I was the editor on the Danish edition.)"
One shall always learn new things about you!
"so she managed to get it out from the locked cupboard while the knife was as big as herself..."
Heavens, man! You either have huge knives, or tiny daughters!
Or both. :-D
"Oh, that's not a knife. THIS is a knife" - (Crocodile Dundee.)
"Yes they know and they need real things."
My 3-y/o nephew was misbehaving:
"Don't be a Malfoy.
- I'm NOT a Malfoy! I can't be! Malfoy's in the TV."
Oh yeah, they know reality from Harry Potter-like fiction. :-)
Never, EVER, underestimate the sharpness of a child.
Or the sharpness of a knife in a child's hand!!! (:-O
..."that item is magicked out of thin air, some old toilet rolls and a cereal box."
HA HA HA! That's SO true!
"and we have built papier mache Tracy Islands, and we have Lego models of all the vehicles and crews!"
Way cool. Have you blogged pics of those?
My nephew loves playing a naval combat pirate ship PlayStation1 arcade videogame... and also recreating the cannonfights with simplistic Lego models. Each has its own appeal.
"As for suffering the web"
Um... was that a Freudian slip? Or a conscious confession?
"My only regret it that youngest did not get the benefit of the story tapes we have. The new car does not play tapes!"
I have you outdone then. Our very recent, hi-fi system plays DVDs, CDs, JPGs, MP3s... AND audio cassette tapes!!! It also has a built-in radio.
But for our collection of VHS films, we DID have to buy a specific player. One day, we'll digitize all the worthy stuff.
What I *love* about CDs, is how you never need to rewind, it near-instantly jumps to the place you wish and starts playing.
"Still, radio drama is one of those things you discover later in life."
Specifically when the FM signal breaks seconds before the love song you requested for the girl you have a crush on goes on the air. Now THAT's about as much "radio drama" as can ever happen! ;-)
I believe suffering to be the word.
A lot of mess, and an aborted attempt which produced non blogworthy Tracy Islands.
Those who were in the UK in the mid 90's may remember the year of the Tracy Island toy shortage. yes, the show was re-released, and toys to go with it, Matchbox this time, not Dinky. Tracy Island, like TickleMeElmo was the Christmas sell out. Blue Peter, a kids TV magazine show on CBBC1 ran a how to build your own... This was the first show in the 30 year history of the program to be repeated due to public request. They even released the episode on VHS, it too sold out. EO, just ask any 35-45 year old if they can make things "out of a pair of Vals old knickers...."
I'd forgotten how many alarm clocks I tore apart as a kid.
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