How do new technologies affect children?

Using tablets or smartphones as a wild card to keep children distracted is not a good idea.

Today we live surrounded by electronic devices that absorb all our attention: tablets, smartphones, televisions, computers. that absorb all our attention: tablets, smartphones, televisions, computers... This is not something cognitively beneficial for human beings, we spend many hours in front of these devices, which bring the world to our couch at home, but wouldn't it be better to go out and see the world ourselves?

Surely more than one of us has been amazed at the great handling that our children have over new technologies. The tablet has become one of the great allies of many parents.. It allows us to keep our child calm while we are having dinner with friends, watching a movie, doing housework or even on occasion have helped us to manage a tantrum. But... how do these technologies affect our children?

The effects of the technological distractions in the children

One of our main tasks as parents is to calm down our children.That is to say, to provide them with the necessary tools for an adequate emotional regulation in their adulthood. Children by themselves do not learn these skills and only through us they will be able to calm down.

Of course, this is not an easy task. Sometimes we will be the ones who get even more nervous than the child. What will be the result? We will be transmitting the discomfort to our child and he/she will not be able to calm down.

There are times when at this point of frustration we try to give them food, toys, the cell phone or the tablet. To our surprise this works; all those sounds, movements, images and colors make our child calm down and so do we. Because this has worked for us, we will start using it every time we don't get our child to calm down, This becomes an excessive use at an early age and in the midst of the child's brain development..

All this that makes us return to our calm, generates a series of long-term negative consequences in the child. What are the negative consequences of the use of new technologies in children?

Isolation

We will not be connecting emotionally with what is happening to our child and therefore we will not be understanding him/her. and therefore we will not be understanding or helping to solve what has generated the tantrum or crying. We will be teaching the child to regulate his emotions through distraction, so there will not be an adequate regulation of negative emotional states.

Rewards behaviors that do not solve a given problem

The child will learn that to get what he wants, he can do it through tantrums and anger.. As a consequence, we will not be promoting self-control in the child nor his tolerance to frustration.

Imagine a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket because we have not bought him what he has asked for. It can be an uncomfortable situation. As we do not manage to calm him down, we leave him our cell phone so that he can be calm during the time we have left shopping. In this case we will be rewarding his behavior and as I said before we will not be encouraging frustration tolerance. The child will think: "well, they didn't buy me those trinkets I asked for, but in exchange I got what they rarely let me have". He has to take no for an answer.

It slows down their learning

At an early age, symbolic play is especially important for children. This consists of playing imagining that he is a mother, a teacher or a doctor. They can imagine feeding their doll or bathing it, and with a stick they find they can imagine that it is a toothbrush. This allows them to understand and internalize the world in which they live and surrounds them.

On the contrary, television or video games do not allow this cognitive work, since there is no possibility of imagining and creating from what happens in the material environment.

In childhood, brain connections are still developing, and the use of screens generates addiction. the use of screens generates addiction. In this case, all the colors, movements and sounds what they generate in the child is a kind of fascination, generating an overstimulation in the child. That is why the child becomes engrossed when he has one of these devices in his hands.

We may think that the child will be concentrated and attentive, but the reality is that this is not the case. This is a passive attitude in the face of novel stimuli, generating a disconnection from the logic.This is a passive attitude to novel stimuli, generating a disconnection of the frontal lobe in the child, which is in charge of attention, planning, problem solving or working memory, being all these functions affected.

Encourage the child

We will also be sending an implicit message that we are annoyed in certain situations. A child is always going to be moving, talking, touching things, etc. This is something natural in children, what we will be doing with the tablet is "anesthetizing" their behavior and preventing their cognitive development to follow its course.

It gives them a form of escape

Sometimes children with emotional problems employ the use of technology as a form of disconnection.. Video games allow them to be in a parallel and unreal world, in which they do not feel discomfort. This encourages dissociation in children, i.e., disconnecting from oneself and from reality, which is an avoidance response, chronifying all the discomfort.

In short, different studies have shown that premature use of technologies can affect attention, learning, impulsivity, relationship problems, addiction and language problems.

How should we limit the use of technology by our children?

First of all, we have to keep in mind that we are our children's role models. we are our children's role models, so we are the first ones to limit our own use of these devices.. We cannot scold our child when he/she is using the cell phone while we are eating, if we do the same. If our child is with us, it is important to leave the cell phone aside and spend that time with our child and attend to his or her needs.

It is important that there are no electronic devices in our children's room. These should be in a visible place where we can supervise their use..

In consultation, I meet many parents who put the TV on for their children to eat. From my point of view, it is important to remove the television during mealtimes. It can be done in a longer period of time, and it is a moment that can be shared with the family.

Today we know that children learn through learn through experiences with the real world and through interaction with adults and peers. with adults and their peers. All the experiences that the child can live in their day to day, all interaction with nature, with the game, a look, a smile etc, are those that mark their development and will be decisive in the history and development of their life. Of course this is something that is lost in the interaction with screens.