There is a growing concern among parents about how the use of new technologies will affect their children. At what age should we allow them access to the devices? What are the risks linked to the early use of ICT?
To the recurring questions, concise answers. And that’s what entities like the American Academy of Pediatrics are for. From this academy, and after having made various investigations, they discourage exposure to technology before two years. The reason is in the psychological, behavioral and health problems that seem to be related to their use by children.
Let’s review what are some of the pernicious effects of new technologies.
1. Decreases motor and cognitive development
The lack of physical mobility affects not only the physical state, but also the intelligence and all aspects related to psychomotricity. Ratey, an American psychologist, expressed through a study conducted in 2008 the relationship between attention capacity and learning, in the sense that the movement enhances both. The sedentary life due to excessive use of the devices negatively affects the normal development of the child.
2. We are raising obese children
Smartphones, video games, devices and watching television are directly related to the increase in obesity. Earlier this year, WHO warned of an obesity epidemic in Europe before the year 2030. And specifically in Spain is expected a rise from 19% to 36% of the population in 15 years. Children addicted to new technologies enter this range.
3. Childhood insomnia
According to the Kaiser Foundation, 75% of children access their devices from their own room, often before bedtime. However, this habit does not resemble that of relaxed reading that encourages sleep and quiet at night. In fact, the devices produce “technological insomnia.” This has negative consequences for physical growth, since the growth hormone is secreted during sleep, but also produces other collateral problems such as academic delay or lack of concentration.
4. Mood disorders
In recent years, the increase in the prevalence of affective and behavioral disorders has been related to the abuse of technology. Among the most common problems is child depression and anxiety, although at the social level we also find that children have the risk of reducing their social skills in “face-to-face interaction” insofar as they substitute real and physical contact for virtual conversations and texting.
5. Decreased sensitivity to other people’s pain and increased aggressiveness
The special effects of the films and the viewing of bloody and aggressive scenes opened a whole way to make us more insensitive to the pain of others, and to “normalize” violence as a form of relationship. You have not even blinked watching murders and beatings on the big screen. All this has been transferred to multimedia content and many videogames, to the point that in the United States violence is classified as a “risk to public health” because of the negative impact it produces on children, increasing the levels of child aggression.
Use iOS parental controls to avoid these threats
To avoid all these threats, parents are needed to make sure that their kids make proper use of the new technologies and for that, they can use iOS parental controls. These controls provided by parental apps such as FamilyTime allow parents to restrict their kids from using their tech devices for longer periods and enable them to schedule auto screen locks.
FamilyTime also enables parents to monitor their kids digitally by providing several unique features for monitoring and controlling their kids’ use of mobile devices.
