Child Crafting

The advent of the personal computer has opened up a whole new interactive platform for people all over the world. Be it for entertainment (games, videos music etc) to education (Internet, e-learning, eBooks etc), and even edutainment, the combination of learning and playing. However, like many other things, the computer is a double-edged sword.

When used with discernment, the computer can become the most useful tool for learning. Sadly that is not the case most of the time. Gaming addiction, in particular online games, have caused mental and physical health problems in children, teens and even adults. According to an article from the January 2008 issue of The Journal of Nurse Practitioners, a patient suffered from depression brought on in part by his wife’s addiction to Second Life, a massive multi-player online game. TIME also reported that parents in china were impelled to send their addicted child to military like school to break the vice.

Gaming is only a part of Internet addiction. Chat rooms, social-network sites and pornography are also prevalent. An 18-year old promising teen arrived to start his first year at a university in the northeast. Within days, he was arrested on charges of armed robbery and attempted rape. Seeking money to fund his hours in Internet cafés, Zhang allegedly stole mobile phones and cash from two girls, then attempted to imitate what he’d learned surfing pornographic websites.

Internet addiction is an increasingly recognized problem in ultra-wired societies. The consequences ranges from anti-social behaviors, physical health decline due to the sedentary nature of the activity, to crimes like theft and even rapes to fund their cravings. Indeed these are all typical upshots of addiction.

The computer and the internet are amoral. It is up to us to decide how to use it. If even adults are susceptible to the temptations, we have to allocate much more attention in shielding our kids from them, and at the same time allowing them to utilize one of the greatest innovations in modern times. The key is to cultivate a desire for learning in them from a young age, and the best way is to start with cultivating the reading habit.

Introducing the computer media to your unprepared child can be as dangerous to his/her intellectual development as handing them a knife is to their life. Indeed, excessive computer use can permanently affect the structure of the brain in young children.

“… computer technology, if introduced too early and without supervision, can have a negative effect on children. Apart from becoming ‘computer nerds’, they can miss out on vital social and intellectual development, as well as being in danger of developing anti-social tendencies – like a somewhat distorted view of life devoid of human compassion…. …

Mr Shelper and his wife, Pat, who both work for World Book Encyclopedia, and are parents of six children, are calling for the salvation of books, becoming obsolete in the big scramble for technology. … … As a child learns to sit up before it crawls, and crawls before it walks so should children be acquainted with the written word and its socialising and civilising qualities before being encouraged to sit in isolation with a machine. … … video screens only develops a part of the brain, to the detriment of imagination and concentration, and even some thought processes.”

- Excerpt from “Computers or books?” by Maria Galinovic, The Border Mail, Sunday, May 18 , 1996

The domination of computer over books could breed a generation of children deficient in imaginative skills. While some may argue that computers are vastly more interactive and intellectually challenging than TV programs, they are essentially stimulating identical areas of the brain.

“The brain processes visual and verbal stimuli differently… … It is verbal stimuli which is necessary to the development of critical thinking and literacy skills. When the brain is given the choice between visual and verbal stimuli, it will focus on the visual… … not all lessons a child needs to learn can be conveniently packaged into software. Even if children access a computerised novel, they won’t get the same benefit as from reading a paper version of the book. It is aalmost impossible to read text from a computer screen for any length of time, Dr Juan said…. … many children will be turned off reading pages of computerised text if they know a click of the mouse could start up a more visual program… … reading a book is an emotional experience which children should not be denied. If parents read to their children, it also develops a bond between them. … … “

- Excerpt from “Children better off doing it by the book”, The Sunday Telegraph, Feb 18, 1996

The importance of reading is further expounded in the following article.

“Reading is rather like eating: not only essential to the mind, as eating is to the body, but also a pleasure in itself. Indeed it has an advantage over eating – the enjoyment lasts longer. A good book, and the knowledge, insights and ideas it gives you, can stay in your mind, maybe for a lifetime. It is the books we read when we are young, when our minds are less cluttered and distracted, that tend to make a lasting impression.

When you read, you imagine, you become close to what you are reading about, you learn to take a sympathetic or critical view of characters and their actions and decisions.

Children, even when they can read for themselves, still enjoy having books read to them. In this way they can get a taste for books that are too difficult for them to read on their own. And being read to also means that for a special part of the day they have their parents undivided attention. … … And so reading becomes associated with some of the best things in life – family, security, contentment.”

- Excerpt from “Reading is like eating” by Joamma Hennings, Grow Magazine

Once the desire of reading is cultivated in a child, the desire for learning comes naturally. From the stories they read and the words they come across, they will begin to ask questions and reason within themselves. Critical thinking, imagination, vocabulary improvement and moral judgements are all promoted. By further providing them with non-computer resources like children/graded encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference books, they will become independent learners. Parents play a vital role in the first few steps of their independent learning journey by guiding them to looking for information through books and other printed materials.

Computer software can be very useful in developing analytical thinking due to their interactive potential. Higher order thinking can also be promoted by a range of softwares. But is your child ready to embrace the freedom of information and endless possibilites in the virtual world? True, edutainment can be beneficial to your child, but only under the prerequisite that he/her is an eager learner. And even then, reading should always be a major part of learning.

“Bill Gates, founder of computer software giant Microsoft, extols the virtues of the written word: “People cannot become truly knowledgeable without being excellent readers. While multimedia systems can use video and sound to deliver information in compelling ways, text is still one of the best ways to convey details.

“I try to make time for reading each night. In addition to the usual newspapers and magazines, I make it a priority to read at least one newsweekly from cover to cover. If I were to read only what intrigues me I would finish the magazine the same person I was when I started. So I read it all.”

- “No Substitute”, The Guardian