Review of a Memoir on The Impact of Technology on Children

Bavelier, Daphne, C. Shawn Green, and Matthew WG Dye. "Children, wired: for better and for worse." Neuron, (2010).

This article is about whether technology have positive or negative effects on children and also how it shapes them cognitively. He explains that the exposure of specific content on children will lead to future effects and associates the intake of technology such as a television is like the “eating food”. He also explains that although there are positive cognitive effects when children use technology such as learning benefits, there are also some negative consequences such as change in behavior. Then the article goes on about the way children learn and develop through technology and then comparing them to children who learn and develop the conventional way.

Brody, Michael. Seductive Screens: Children's Media—Past, Present, and Future. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

This book discusses about the how people use screen technology in the past and then compares it to the present then predicts what will happen in the future if the trend of the present continues. He explains that presently, children are more induced with popular culture and became more ignorant with the world due to screen media they are buried in. Children are heavily influenced by the media and are constantly glued to their screens for their thirst for entertainment. He also noted that in recent years’ screen time for children has also increased and the time outdoors has dropped. Brody asks the question” Is children’s media entertaining and educational, or a Trojan horse bearing hyper-consumerism, violence, and poor health” and continues to analyze this throughout his book.

Farber, Barry A., et al. "Children, technology, problems, and preferences." Journal of clinical psychology, (2012).

This journal is study about young people and their ways of communicating to each other through various means of technology. He talks about how the use of social media is affecting their self-confidence. He also mentions that using social media is exhausting to an individual that is in need of acquiring his social status and is constantly comparing themselves to people which causes them to lose self-esteem. By constantly “expending a great deal of mental energy trying to convince others” that they are a great person it is causing them “psychosocial problems”. The overall message of this research is social media can be damaging to individuals.

Foss, Elizabeth, and Allison Druin. "Children’s Internet Search: Using Roles to Understand Children’s Search Behavior." Synthesis Lectures on information concepts, retrieval, and services, (2014).

This is a discussion on a child’s search behavior online and it goes on to talks about the shifting nature of children on how they obtain information. They make a point on how in the past children relied on adults to answer their questions but now they use the internet to retrieve information. Given this, search engines, such as google, have to collect data on their search behaviors in order to accommodate them and constantly updating interface for a more efficient use. It goes on to talk about companies are always revolving around search behavior among different age groups and how these search engines have to revolve around their thinking.

Kulik, James A. Effects of using instructional technology in elementary and secondary schools: What controlled evaluation studies say. Arlington, VA: SRI International, 2003.

This article is a research about the question of effectiveness of learning with technology in schools. They tested students on many subjects such as writing, mathematics, and science. They compared results from students who went through learning without computers and to students learning with computers. Although they collected data on these students, their conclusion on whether or not “computer-based programs can contribute to the improvement of instruction in American schools” did improve student learning. Their results were unclear. They have found that students who go through conventional learning or computer-based learning achieved the similar test scores.

Plowman, Lydia, et al. "Preschool children’s learning with technology at home." Computers & Education, (2012).

This article is a research about technologies that preschool children encounter at home and what they are learning from it. It talks about how since much of learning of a preschool child comes from home, it is important that their development at home should be right because that accounts for their future characteristics. He then analyzes how different families have different approaches on how their child encounters technology and what children are learning through their interactions with technology.

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. “Protecting Children on the Internet.”, (2007).

This article is a hearing before the United States Senate. The hearing opens with Mr. Inouye stating that although computer technology “enrich” a student’s learning and makes a point about how wonderful this technology is but given the positive uses of the internet/technology, there are also misuse and harm that can be done to the children. As we cycle through the senates, we hear them make some points about how pornography, sex predators, and valgureness plague the internet and is seen by children. When the children see these images, it can pollute their minds in a way they will be “affected by it for the rest of their lives” (Senator Rockefeller). They way to try to counter that, proposed by Senator Bill Nelson, was to create “comprehensive lesson plans… to teach Internet safety in schools”. They also break down the issue of how they are going to counter child pornographers and report that those kinds of people are getting more clever and evading law enforcement. In order to bring them to justice they need more support from the public. Some solutions that the senate's provided were to put internet safety courses in schools and gain more public support and cooperation.

Van den Bulck, Jan. "Television viewing, computer game playing, and Internet use and self-reported time to bed and time out of bed in secondary-school children. “SLEEP-NEW YORK THEN WESTCHESTER”, (2004).

This article is a research on how much time children spend on their technology such as computers, phones, and games before they fall asleep and its effects on their mornings and their day at school. What he did was compare data on what time a person went to bed, wake up, and how much time they spend on their technology and their overall sleep patterns and tiredness. The data that he compared was with his first year children (average age of 13) and then fourth year children (average age of 16) keeping in mind that he has waited for these children to age to collect the data. He then goes on to discuss his findings on the relationship between media and overall tiredness of the kids.