Growing Up Digital

WE HAVE A TODDLER who is growing up digital. She knows how to slide through interfaces before she knows how to use the toilet. Because I'm not a big fan of glass cockpits, I'm restricting her use of touchscreens but I don't mind her pushing buttons to make things work. That's what she's doing with a digital dictaphone at right. Like a lot of American families, television is an almost constant presence in her daily life. This means she will watch more television before turning three than I did before turning 13. As a very young child, she has been viewing different kinds of screens and trying to manipulate different sorts of electronic media on a daily basis. Mia is growing up with electronic media as a normative part of her daily life. I wonder what's going to happen when she discovers her primary school is locked in the last century. I also wonder what the impact of daily media use is on very young minds.

I thought I wouldn't ever let her watch television on her own but she's able to turn on the main TV set, select a DVD, insert it, and push the play button. If it doesn't appeal, she can eject the platter and start again. The only way I can stop her using the set is by pulling the plug. She can switch on the mains power selector by experimenting with the outlets.

There is some intriguing evidence that background television interferes with toddlers’ ability to focus on play. We're not seeing that with Mia because she likes her Play-Doh, she enjoys drawing and she wants to dance by herself. But I know several people who are brain-numb from watching hours of TV and I can't help but think that passive addiction to moving images on a screen inhibits very young children's neurologic and attendant cognitive development.

But that stunted development is probably no worse than an adult addiction to an iPhone app or a babbling father's overuse of Twitter.

---

Elizabeth A. Vandewater, Victoria J. Rideout, Ellen A. Wartella, Xuan Huang, June H. Lee, Mi-suk Shim -- "Digital Childhood: Electronic Media and Technology Use Among Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers" in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, May 1, 2007.

x_ref125mc