By Caroline Schneider
Today’s technological advances are mind blowing. Well, not to me exactly, because I grew up with a television, wireless phones and an iPod, but compared to where we were 30 years ago? Mind blowing. And although my parents may still be amazed that their 17-year-old daughter can text as fast as I do, while walking even, I believe that there’s something more amazing happening with young people and technology, and when I say young, I mean young.
Baby Jack turned two in August. His parents both have iPads and that child can use those devices better than I could imagine. He can slide open them and go to whatever app he desires, whether it be his Mickey Mouse Club House show, his Winnie the Pooh book app or listen to his CDs in the library of the device. It is amazing what this toddler can do with this technology. But then that brings me to the question at hand: what does this mean for the future?
There are studies on top of studies that show how bad it is for children to watch TV or use a computer for more than five minutes a day. But to these studies, I say, “Too late.” And it is too late, because at this point in how far we’ve come with technological advances it doesn’t matter if the University of Wherever found that by using a cell phone we’re not going to concentrate in class as well, because in today’s society, we all have cell phones and that’s not going to make us put them down.
Although negative consequences are absolutely noteworthy, I think it would be a better use of our time to focus on what these technologically advanced minds will be able to do for us in the future.
By the time today’s toddlers are 10, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could make an entire iMovie by themselves. By the time these kids are 25 who knows what they will be doing for NASA or what kinds of new technology they will be coming up with to help make our lives even easier than they already are.
I’m not saying that toddlers should give up books and blocks completely. From my multiple babysitting nights, I understand that being able to play with cars or dolls are important to the development of any child. And I’m also not saying that it’s a good idea for parents to throw their children down in front of a Macbook and walk away. I’m just thinking, thinking about all of the possibilities in the years to come. This is a new society we’re living in. There are new ways of learning due to numerous monthly advances and there is no surprise that those new ways will more than likely lead to more advanced and innovative generations to come.