Sarah Hardin
The Open
Road
Generation iPad
How is the iPad a postive or negative influence on childhood development?
iPad or TV?
What does the future hold for Generation iPad?
As technology becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, it’s important to think about how it affects our social skills. Instead of having a conversation with the person sitting right next to us, we send out a Twitter update to our hundreds or thousands of followers. We are constantly looking down at the 2D world on our phones, iPads, and laptops instead of looking up at the 3D world around us. Will social skills like holding a meaningful conversation, teamwork, and making good eye contact matter in a few hundred years or even in just a few decades? Or will your technological skills like writing computer code, navigating the ever growing Internet, and posting a Twitter update matter more? Currently, the most desired skill that employers want from future employees is the “ability to work in a team structure (Gray).” However, “proficiency with computer software programs” has risen to the seventh most important skill desired by employers (Gray). Will technological skills eventually surpass social skills like teamwork? Perhaps, the iPad is preparing children for the future more than we know. Generation iPad been using smart technology their whole lives, so a job interview that tests your ability to program software rather than answering questions like “what are your weaknesses” could be a piece of cake for them. But will having technological skills only determine your success in the work world, or will it also determine your success in everyday life? Will friendships and love lives exist solely through technology? Will the reality of our world no longer be through the 3D world but rather in the 2D world of technology? Will technology become our new reality?
iPads in education?
iPads for babies?
A study completed by G. Falloon in November 2013 researched how a group of children interacted with educational iPad apps. The apps included educational activities that facilitated practice with reading, writing, and basic math skills. The study concluded that the iPad and its many apps are “powerful learning tools” due to their “unique interface, simplicity, portability, connectivity, speed, and range of apps.” However, the study also stated that the iPad and its many apps must be combined with “skillful and diligent teachers” in order to ensure holistic and effective learning (Falloon). So, while the iPad is a great learning tool, it cannot replace the teachers and parents who are extremely important in helping a child learn. Basically, you cannot just put an iPad app in front of a child and expect her to learn Spanish. You must be extremely critical in selecting apps for children to learn. In the study, there were problems with the apps that were not apparent until the children began to play with them. Some apps didn’t have clear instructions; some didn’t have a clear learning purpose; some didn’t have enough structure to guide the students’ interactions with the game. Furthermore, the teacher or the parent must be involved in the learning process by providing “descriptive language” to show the child what he or she is learning (Generation). For example, Angry Birds could be a physics lesson if an adult is there to describe to the child how he or she is using velocity, trajectory, and force to launch the birds into the pigs (Generation). Could school eventually become all fun and games?
I babysit for a few families, and some of the parents have bought their young children iPads. The iPad has seemed to replace my need to entertain the children. I can just sit back and relax while they play Disney Villains or Angry Birds. However, when I try to take away the iPad so we can play a game or eat lunch, the tantrums begin. These iPad tantrums are much different than other tantrums. When I take away a different toy or make them eat vegetables, the tantrums are more like short pouts. When I take away the iPad, the child looks so lost and betrayed. The iPad has become their friend, their pacifier, their reality. Whatever will they do without it? Anytime we try to play a non-iPad game, the children believe that the game is a “fake game” and will relate anything we play back to an iPad game. They use words like “Level Up”, “Game Over, “Retry”, and “Extra Life” in what I consider real life games like Freeze Tag or simply playing with action figures. However, the children also learn from their iPads. They know all their colors and are learning how to write their letters through apps on the iPad. I wonder how this powerful device will shape who these children become. Will they become genius adults who have learned four languages and can hack into any computer, or will they become adults who don’t know how to function when their devices break down? A recent survey indicates that seventy percent of parents admit to letting their children use user friendly devices like iPads and iPhones (Generation). I don’t know if this iPad epidemic is a positive or a negative thing for children. The iPad first came out on April 3rd, 2010, just four years ago (Ritchie). It is amazing how 52% of American children have access to some kind of mobile device like an iPad or smartphone (Rideout). Yet, we really don’t know what we have created. We don’t how children raised on iPads will develop and who they will become. Most of the research on the effects of the iPad on children is still in the beginning stages, so it’s difficult to tell if it’s a positive thing or a negative thing. Have we unknowingly created technology hungry, tantrum throwing monsters or have we created an intelligent and able future?
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It’s easy for older generations like my own to be cynical at today’s ever increasing technology. However, change is always around us. Anything new can be scary to think about when you aren’t sure of the long lasting effects. Plato was afraid that writing would make humans dumb, yet look at all of the information, entertainment, and communication that can occur through writing (McWhorter). My mom said she thought the VHS would never be successful because she didn’t think people would want to see the same movie twice. The world and technology will keep progressing despite the critics. The critics eventually die or are proven wrong, yet the innovation continues through multiple generations. So, whether we like it or not, the iPad will continue to be used, the technological 2D world will expand more and more. Generation iPad eventually grow up and become the critics of generations younger than them for using some futuristic device that I can’t even fathom. Life moves on. So while it is important for children to use a powerful device like the iPad with “parental discretion,” we need not worry about them too much. The positives of the iPad outweigh the negatives, and the future will adapt and change to meet the needs of the people that Generation iPad will become.
Life as a baby is crucial and can determine how you will behave later on in life. As a baby, your brain is still developing. So, if you get dropped on your head as a baby, the effects are much more detrimental than if you hit your head when you’re seven. The amount of human contact, love, stimulation, etc. that we receive as babies can determine some of how we function as adults. That doesn’t mean that parents needs to worry about every single thing that their baby is exposed to, but frequent, daily exposure to various stimuli can affect a baby’s development. Babies are constantly putting things in their mouths, grasping things, tasting things, smelling things, seeing things, and hearing things because they are taking in the world around them through their five senses. The video “Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work” shows a little baby trying to navigate a paper magazine like an iPad. She tries to zoom in, swipe, and draw things with just her finger, but it doesn’t work because it isn’t an iPad (A Magazine). Her reality is different from those of other children or people who haven’t had iPads their entire lives. Could this altered reality affect other aspects in the baby’s life? Will she try to treat other 3D objects as 2D objects or will she eventually learn? The world in which we live is a 3D world. However, technology is progressing and expanding so much that the 2D world has begun to take over. Do babies first need to grasp their 3-D world before trying to master the 2-D world on an iPad? Or will Generation iPad simply be ahead of the rest of us in mastering an ever expanding 2D world?
My generation was, in a sense, raised on a television. If we were bored, we would watch Barney. If we were driving our parents crazy, they would put on an episode of Blue’s Clues and voila we were pacified and quiet for the next half hour. The iPad has replaced the television for many children growing up now. Instead of watching SpongeBob for several hours, children now play with apps on their iPads. They can kill pigs with birds and color with virtual crayons for hours without needing any help from adults. So, which is better for kids: the iPad or the television? The iPad could be better than the television in terms of interactivity. Watching a television is a very passive activity where children can sit for hours in a zombie like trance with drool hanging out of their mouths. There is no action required from the children because the television does all the work. However, the iPad requires children to swipe, point, follow, touch, doodle, and even speak. The interactivity between the iPad and the child could develop his or her motor skills, thought process, and imagination.
So is the iPad really better than the television? Maybe in what it offers to children in terms of apps and activities, but the iPad could possibly offer too much. The iPad is extremely portable. It can go literally everywhere with the child. It can go in the car, to the doctor’s office, to church, to school, to Grandma’s house, to the bathroom, to restaurants, and even to bed. Any place where a child may need or want some entertainment or distraction, the iPad can go. A television is too big and requires a power outlet, so it couldn’t follow children around. When I was younger, if I was in the doctor’s office waiting room, I would play with the those bead mazes and puzzles until my name was called. At a restaurant, I would color with crayons or talk with my siblings. At church, I was expected to sit quietly until the service was over. Children on iPads may have difficulty pacifying themselves. When you always use a device like an iPad to calm children down the harder it gets for the children to learn how to calm themselves down (Generation). They must have the ever portable iPad and its handy dandy games to keep them quiet. How these children will behave when they are older, only time will tell. However, didn’t the TV act as a similar pacifying device for my generation, only at home though?
Both the iPad and the TV have good and bad qualities for children. The television’s main “good” quality being its unportability and the iPad’s being its interactivity. But is one better or worse than the other? It’s difficult to say because Generation iPad is still developing and growing up, so we have yet to see the long lasting impacts of the iPad. However, if Generation iPad is watching TV in addition to playing with the iPad, the impacts could be detrimental because they have the passive TV at home and the pacifying iPad everywhere else. The average child between the age of zero and eight watches one hour and fifty-two minutes of television a day (Rideout). If almost two hours of television is combined with the portable iPad, the combination could make for a child who doesn’t know how to function without technology. However, with technology becoming so vital to life, will a member of Generation iPad ever be without technology?
A Magazine Is an IPad That Does Not Work
Generation iPad: Could Device Hurt Toddler's Development?
Works Cited
Falloon, G. "What's Going on Behind the Screens: Researching Young Students' Learning Pathways Using Ipads." Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 30.4 (2014): 318-336. Print.
Generation Ipad: Could It Hurt Toddlers' Development? New York, N.Y: Films Media Group, 2013. Internet resource.
Gray, Kevin, and Andrea Koncz. "The Candidate Skills/Qualities Employers Want." The Candidate Skills/Qualities Employers Want. National Association of College and Employers, 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 03 Aug. 2014.
"A Magazine Is an IPad That Does Not Work.m4v." YouTube. n.d. Web. 04 Aug. 2014.
McWhorter, John. "Txtng Is Killing Language. JK!!!" Ted.com. TED, Feb. 2013. Web. 04 Aug. 2014.
Rideout, Victoria, A Common Sense Media Research Study, and 20. "Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America 2013." Zero to Eight (n.d.): n. pag. Commonsensemedia.org. Common Sense Media, Fall 2013. Web. 4 Aug. 2014.
Ritchie, Rene. "History of IPad (original): Apple Makes the Tablet Magical and Revolutionary." IMore. N.p., 20 Oct. 2013. Web. 01 Aug. 2014.
Angry Birds could be a physics lesson when adults get involved
The iPad is a useful tool, but it's no a babysitter. Technology can do a lot of cool things, but it cannot hug a child or keep him from eating rat poison. The parents, teachers, relatives, and babysitters have a duty to monitor a child's iPad use because technology can be so powerful. Lately, instead of letting the children play the games by themselves when I babysit, I have been facilitating teamwork through the iPad. I have been playing the Disney Villains game a lot with the children I baby-sit. Together, we have been practicing patterns, timing, navigation, coloring, and speed all while defeating Cruella de Ville, Maleficent, and Captain Hook at the same time. It's much more fun for me and the children too because we are playing together, not alone. Before looking into the positives and negatives of the iPad, I was completely against the iPad. I told myself that if I had children, they would never have iPads and they would play outside all day. Now I believe that anything in moderation is okay (except eating rat poison).
How will interviews be different in the future?
Watching TV is a very passive activity
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