Hello All, I hope you have a good day
Talking about young kids, I mean very young, and whether they need smartphones or not will always be an intense debate between people and parents. We can not deny that nowadays smartphones have become an integral part of our everyday life, for any kind of activity.
Smartphones has become a powerful tools for almost all of our needs. So the sooner people can adapt and master the use of smartphones, the better they can perform in any kind of activities.
Due to that, some people introduce smartphones to their children, and there is a big question there... How old are those children so they can use it properly. Some parents have high believe in their children and put smartphones into their children early phase of life hood.
There are some benefits our children can get from smartphones, let say the most common goal what most parents want their children to do with their smartphones... it is to get more educational opportunities. Smartphones are a great learning tools, we can get educational apps there that can help our children to study and learn new things including new language. There are some games that are developed to help nurture children cognitive development.
So why would you hold your children longer to adopt these tools right?
Even it is not for educational purpose, smartphone is a device for communication. It helps us to keep in touch with our children, so the communication between children with parents and guardians are well connected. This provides safety too to our children, in case some emergencies occur, smartphones can be a lifeline. Let say for example we pick the simple one, GPS tracking, which enables parents to monitor their child’s location.
And the most important one is the social and intimacy. Kids can stay connected with their parents all the time, and this is one of the most important one why parents introduce smartphones to their children. Anytime you want to get in touch with your kids, just text them, call them, and video call them.
As easy as it is said above, everything has a price to be paid. For parents, they need to guide their children to get a good balance in using their smartphones. With a good guidance, adding it with some verbal conversation and setting some rules, parents will be able to help their children to get the benefit properly from those smartphones.
The World Is Not That Simple dude
So here is the fact, the world is not a simple like that. I am a melancholic, so I tend to seek perfection and always see things from negative point of view. I feel like there are more negative than positive in this world, and as people always simplify things and make it looks like positive and great, I often see it differently.
Things as said above won't be able to implemented as I have written above. Let say I have these following argument why they won't work at all.
- There are restriction on how old a child can use some apps, and mostly are 13 years old. Those number come from the expert and practitioner, so they have data, research, and argument why they choose 13 years old. I am not an expert of psychology nor pediatric, so I see no point to debate that number. I can not understand why some parents trying so hard to prove their children better than others by neglecting that age limitation for the sake showing the world their children are better.
- Although you can monitor your children smartphones, you won't be there for them for 24 hours. There are limitations how far parental controls can guard your children. They might get connected to harmful individual, or maybe get some materials that should not be consumed for their age. You can not blame parental apps for that, you have greater part of responsibility for that issue.
- Addiction, no debate. Smartphones are addictive, whether the addiction comes from certain games on the phones, or the habit of depending everything from the phones. Too much addiction from smartphones can backfire and make the brain development not effective, especially in creativity and critical thinking. Too much spending time on smartphones is not good for the health too, from eye sighting to sleep disturbance. Some even get less physicals activities which actually very harmful for children to not get enough exercise.
OK I have to stop here. I don't want to look like some expert of this. I won't debate about how you should let your children use their smartphones. I can only say that you should treat your children as kids, let them be kids, let them play with their friends, learn from everywhere and running and destroy things around lol.
Limit the smartphone use, don't use it as tools to keep your children quiet.
Just let them be kids
Thank you for coming and reading my post. I live in Jakarta, Ex-Capital City of Indonesia. Currently I am running a small business with less than 10 people. I used to live by making money online, that's why I like being here, on HIVE, and in #PIMP - (Paper In My Pocket) community.
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