Internet on Children
Abstract
The Internet continues to raise controversy in recent years about existing and potentials harms and (more shyly, benefits), particularly by parents and pediatricians. The arguments are, apparently, based on concern for children's mental and physical health amid warnings of dire consequences for extensive hours spent on social media and gaming platforms. Assuming a scientific mantle, pediatricians emphasize harmful effects of Internet for children, only exacerbating parental concern. This paper argues, in contrast, for practical and confirmed benefits of Internet use for cognitive and social skills. By engaging children in meaningful learning and gaming activities, parents and educators do not only enhance children's cognitive and social skills in early childhood but also in long range, personally and professionally. The future holds much potential for Internet use as evolving usage patterns continue to inform not only how Internet is used but also how young users perceive Internet in different usability patterns in everyday use.
Internet on Children
Introduction
The emergence of ICT innovations, including web-enabled communications, has raised questions about possible short- and long-range consequences of using web innovations. The emphasis on Internet by a growing body of parents and practicing pediatricians as potentially damaging to children's cognitive, psychological and social skills and well being has added more fuel to debate. If anything, parents and pediatricians are consistently viewed in mainstream culture as primary, if not exclusive, sources of authority on children's overall well being. Like all innovations of far-reaching implications, Internet has made a powerful case for debate among parenting stakeholders. There is, however, more to Internet on positive side. If anything, Internet is not only unharmful to children but is, in fact, making children smarter, more social, if not happier. This argument for benefits of Internet is supported by a growing body of peer-reviewed literature but also practical evidence of enhanced cognitive and social performance at home and school. The criticism – by parents and pediatricians – of confirmed harms of Internet use is, if anything, but refutable. This paper aims, hence, to assert existing and potential benefits of enhanced cognitive and social skills of Internet for children.
Headlines are abundant about "proven" harms, if not risks, of Internet use. The concerns by parents make Internet use by children an issue better discussed in negative frames (or else, a parent is viewed by peers as not looking properly after child's well being). The immediate exposure to high resolution screens, extensive hours spent in gaming (particularly massive multiplayer role-playing, MMORPGs), prolonged hours on social media and phenomenal multimedia sharing – all fuel debate, on negative side, of how harmful Internet is. To complicate matters, U.S. Academy of Pediatrics has recommended parents should ensure children are exposed to screens no more than two hours daily (Gold, 2015). This "scientific" reporting of confirmed harms on children by using Internet is, in fact, a mainstay in almost all arguments against Internet use. In a nutshell, Internet is discredited, both morally (by parents) and scientifically (by pediatricians), based on cognitive and social harms for children.
Harms of Internet: The Underlying Rationale
The Internet is, indeed, a deeply pervasive innovation. Having been adopted in countless areas, Internet has come to be an integral part of day-to-day life. For current purposes, Internet has become increasingly adopted in schools and at home and has, accordingly, become a critical educational and socializing platform for children. The digitization, so to speak, of everyday life has wired children to computers and smart devices making interpreting intended and spontaneous ideas into shareable images, vides, comments and tweets a routine children perform at fingertips and in a most "natural" way.
Compared to parents, children are digital natives. That is, children born in mid 1990s (and later) are born into an age dominated by extensive use of digital platforms. Throughout, web-based communications remain a defining feature of all interactions between children. The parents – raised in different social contexts marked less by virtual communication, if any, using web-enabled innovations and according to parenting styles at odds with ones practiced nowadays (Plowman, McPake & Stephen, 2008) – are, in contrast, informed by a set of values running at odds with children depending more on peer-to-peer communication and "counseling". Thus, in seeking to uphold a view of "right" Internet usage patterns, parents are, in fact, imposing a worldview incompatible to current usability patterns.
The pediatricians are no less assertive in promoting a negative image of Internet use. By "scientifically" showing impact of Internet on short-sighting, muscle contraction and chronic headaches, pediatricians are hijacking argument on Internet use by assuming a scientific authority mantle when, in fact, Internet use has as many aspects as Internet usability patterns can allow.
Internet Benefits
On flipside, Internet use has, indeed, confirmed benefits in at least five areas: gaming, cognition, social exchange and self-esteem (Gold).
For gaming, Internet games (particularly web-based MMORPGs) are shown to enhance group collaboration, physical-neural synchronization and enjoyment (Gold). By participating collectively on online games (provided appropriate physical settings are offered), children are apt to learn critical social skills for not only early childhood activities among peers but also, more significantly, for long-range classroom learning activities and later professionally at work. If anything, collaboration is one most important personal and professional skill.
For cognition, a Sesame Workshop survey has shown 80% of iTunes and Google Play applications are developed for 3-8 old children for educational purposes (Gold). This finding, albeit not supported by rigorous research, is supported by educators as particularly significant for discover learning activities (Gold). Therefore, if virtual applications are shown, at least practically, to enhance learning by discovery, claiming extensive hours online is harmful (by parents or pediatricians) is conveniently brushed aside when learning-by-discovery is universally known to be a time-consuming (but considerably important) for long-range benefits.
For social exchange, social media is shown – by practical, results-oriented outcomes – to enhance children's values of kindness, resilience and digital citizenship (Gold). By engaging children in social projects well beyond immediate family contexts, children are made more aware – at an early age – of social issues of significance. Further, by enabling web environments to enact social change in reality, children learn early on how to both enhance digital skills and social entrepreneurship.
For self-esteem, children can use Internet platforms and applications to enhance self confidence (Gold). By guiding efforts in projecting accurate images online, children learn how to externalize best potentials in meaningful ways. Moreover, by using social media for self projection, children learn how to better embark on self-discovery journeys in ways unachievable by limitations in conventional physical contexts.
Conclusion
References
Gold, J. (2015, February 27). Yes, the internet can make your kids smarter, happier and kinder. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Plowman, L., McPake, J., & Stephen, C. (2008). The Technologisation of Childhood? Young Children and Technology in the Home. Children & Society, 24(1), 63–74. Wiley Online Library. doi: 10.1111/j.1099-0860.2008.00180.x
