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NO MUMMY, I WANT AN iPAD [Sunday Star-Times (New Zealand)](Sunday Star-Times (New Zealand) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) As the first generation of kids to be raised on Apple's colourful technology, preschoolers are going mad for gadgets. But is it doing them any good? Fleur Britten reports. HERE'S A new trend picking up speed in cyberspace, and it has a particularly irritating air of smugness about it: YouTube clips of toddlers in their first iPad encounter. "They just know what to do," crow proud parents. "Whitney masters the iPad," overstates another. And it's not only online - rivalry at the pre-school gates focuses on the little darlings' digital fluency. "We never taught Stan how to use the iPhone - he just learnt himself. He can even unlock it," one jubilant parent says. Meet the "mobile kids", the first generation to be raised with - or on - mobile technology. Or, more precisely, on Apple's brilliantly intuitive devices, whose colourful icons and user- friendly touch screen mean that navigation, even for an 18-month- old, is, well, child's play. It's a fact not lost on the app providers, who are exploiting the "pass-back" effect - where parents hand their smart new gadgets to their nippers. Many apps - for example, Baby Flash Cards, Dr Seuss's ABC and "Wheels on the Bus" - now target tiny children. Or their parents, who have to buy them - 60% of the iTunes App Store's top 25 educational apps are designed for toddlers and preschoolers. What's not to like about getting toddlers in early on the digital scene? "You can download free books for the iPad in a couple of minutes, which saves me going to the library," says one mother of a four- year-old. "And it makes reading more fun. Boredom is the main problem with learning." Another mother, Sally, with a three- year-old daughter and a two- year-old son, admits the family's iPad was bought for the children: "They're better on it than I am." They love it, she says, and use apps such as My First Words in French and Montessori Crosswords. Tasks include counting, repeating sounds and tracing letters. Sally is delighted: "You don't have to take 20 books on holiday and, if we're on the train or in church, it's a useful babysitting tool." No prizes for guessing why parents of preschoolers are going to church these days. One of the many advantages of the iPad is its portability. "Learning can take place more frequently," says Professor Rose Luckin, a cognitive scientist at the Institute of Education, University of London. While television is seen as the baddie (paediatricians say its passivity reduces the human interaction necessary for cognitive development), Luckin argues that smart devices can provide powerful multisensory interactions in a family context, any time, anywhere: "Unless you're watching a film, they're not passive. And, as they're mobile, you can still be running around. You can be integrated more easily." For others, though, it's a Pandora's box (with the added threat of jammy paw prints and smashed screens). "My five-year-old became addicted," one mother laments. "Every time she saw it, she'd try to grab it to get to YouTube, and it was hard to monitor what she did." The iPad may have educational uses, but her daughter wasn't interested in those. "Once on it, she'd just zone out, and she'd get moody if we tried to remove it." It's hardly surprising that parents might encourage its pacifying properties: for some, the iPad is the new dummy. Educational psychologist Kairen Cullen has seen a number of concerned parents. "In some cases, the iPad is the first thing children ask for in the morning," she says. Although she hasn't seen any kids presenting symptoms of a clinical condition - prioritising laptop play over eating or sleeping - she notes that it is tending to displace other, more labour-intensive activities such as outdoor play. "Parents need the confidence, and time, to push more traditional activities," she says. And, though children have to learn about deferred gratification, computers don't ask this of them. No wonder they love them. Nothing, though, can compensate for the undivided attention of a significant adult. "However good the virtual interaction, it's never going to stretch development like human interaction does," Cullen says. Only through real relationships do we learn about complex emotional issues, and it's the under-fives who experience the steepest learning curve of all. By substituting virtual interaction, children's social, physical, emotional, cognitive and linguistic skills will be skewed. Cullen thinks there's room for both man and machine (advising a screen limit of 20-30 minutes twice a day, maximum), but others are more hardline. Dr Aric Sigman told childcare specialists recently that computers should be banned from schools until kids reach the age of nine. "We risk infantilising the child's mind by spoon-feeding it with strong audiovisual sensations . . . and subverting the development of children's cognitive skills." Don't scratch the iPad from the shopping list just yet, though. Sigman has his detractors, including John Siraj-Blatchford, of Swansea University. He points out that, although critics talk of "possible repetitive-strain injuries, lack of exercise, risks of obesity, decreased creativity, impaired language and literacy, poor concentration, social isolation, decreased motivation and even depression", there are also benefits in "fine motor skills, communication, emergent literacy and reading readiness, mathematical thinking, problem-solving, self-esteem, self- confidence, co- operation and positive attitudes towards learning". The bad news is ultimately for the parents, because what's key is their interaction (as well as choosing the right app). When they are actively involved in young children's computer use, Siraj- Blatchford says, their kids "perform better on measures of cognitive competence (verbal, quantitative and memory) and school readiness". Supervision may also prevent their children racking up some expensive purchases - like that three-year-old who bought an $18,000 Barbie-pink car on his parents' eBay account. Exactly. _ Sunday Times (c) 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |