Reminiscing about growing up in the good old days is a memory trip well
worth taking, when trying to understand the issues facing the children of
today. A mere 20 years ago, children used to play outside all day, riding
bikes, playing sports and building forts. Masters of imaginary games,
children of the past created their own form of play that didn’t require costly
equipment or parental supervision. Children of the past moved… a lot, and
their sensory world was nature-based and simple. In the past, family time
was often spent doing chores, and children had expectations to meet on a
daily basis. The dining room table was a central place where families came
together to eat and talk about their day, and, in between meals, the table
was the center for baking, crafts and homework.
Today’s families are different. Technology’s impact on the 21st century family is fracturing its very
foundation and causing a disintegration of core values that used to hold families together.
Juggling work, home and community lives, parents now rely heavily on communication,
information and transportation technology to make their lives faster and more efficient.
Entertainment technology (TV, internet, video games, iPods) has advanced so rapidly that
families have scarcely noticed the significant impact and changes to their family structure and
lifestyles.
Elementary aged children use, on average, eight hours per day of
entertainment technology, and 65% of these children have TVs in
their bedroom, with 50% of North American homes have the TV
on all day (1,2). Add emails, cell phones, internet surfing, and
chat lines, and we begin to see the pervasive aspects of
technology on our home lives and family milieu. Gone is dining
room table conversation, replaced by the “big screen” and take
out food. Children now rely on technology for the majority of their
play, grossly limiting challenges to their creativity and
imaginations, as well as limiting necessary challenges to their
bodies to achieve optimal sensory and motor development. Sedentary bodies bombarded with
chaotic sensory stimulation are resulting in delays in attaining developmental milestones, with
subsequent impact on basic foundation skills for achieving literacy (3,4), causing France to ban
all “Baby TV” (5). Violent content found in media has had such an impact on child aggression,
that the United States has classified media violence as a public health risk (6,7). Hard-wired for
high speed, today’s young are entering school struggling with self-regulation and attention skills
necessary for learning, eventually becoming significant behavior management problems for
teachers in the classroom.
So what is the impact of technology on the
developing child? Children’s developing sensory
and motor systems have not evolved biologically to
accommodate the sedentary, yet frenzied and
chaotic nature of today’s technology. Rapidly
advancing technology has contributed to an
increase of physical, psychological and behavior
disorders that the health and education systems are
just beginning to detect, much less understand.
One in six children have a diagnosed developmental disability (8), one in six are obese (9), and
14.3% have a diagnosed psychiatric disorder (10). Diagnoses of ADHD, autism, coordination
disorder, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders can be causally
linked to technology overuse and are increasing at an alarming rate (11-16). An urgent closer
look at the critical factors for meeting developmental milestones, and the subsequent impact of
technology on those factors, would assist parents, teachers and health professionals to better
understand the complexities of this issue and to help create effective strategies to reduce
technology use.
The three critical factors for healthy physical and
psychological child development are movement, touch
and connection to other humans. Movement, touch
and connection are forms of essential sensory input
that are integral for the eventual development of a
child’s motor and attachment systems. When
movement, touch and connection are deprived,
devastating consequences occur (17-19). Young
children require three to four hours per day of active
rough and tumble play to achieve adequate sensory
stimulation to their vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile
systems for normal development (20,21). The critical period for attachment development is from
birth to seven months, where the infant-parent bond is best facilitated by close contact with the
primary parent and by lots of eye contact (22). These types of sensory inputs ensure normal
development of posture, bilateral coordination, optimal arousal states and self-regulation
necessary for achieving foundation skills for eventual school entry.