Newspaper Page Text
A new era in
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From birth, today’s kids learn about the world in a completely
different way than previous generations did. Experts discuss
the advantages and what has been lost
By Reed Karaim
A child’s world always has had odd
dimensions, as narrow as the back
yard or a comer of the kitchen, but as
broad as the imagination. However,
the world of today’s kids has stretched
to accommodate new realms: video
games, virtual realities, online com
munities and a host of high-tech toys. Today’s kids
have talking baby books; they raise digital pets online
before they can be trusted to feed the cat; they fight
wars on distant planets before they’re old
enough to drive. Through text messag
ing, they’re perpetually in touch;
through the Internet, they can meet
people halfway around the world.
FVom cellphones to Halo 3,
they take to all of it with an ease
and eagerness that can leave
parents baffled. In the brave new
digital universe, “adults are im
migrants,” says Gary E. Knell,
president and CEO of Sesame
Workshop, “and kids are natives.”
But is this new world really a
healthy one for children? How are video
games, electronic toys and the rest of the chip
driven gizmos that fill modem life changing child
hood? Those questions loom large enough that next
month’s International CES, the mammoth consumer
electronics trade show held in Las Vegas, is including
a conference The Sandbox Summit; A Playdate with
Technology to examine the way kids learn and play
in the new digital world.
“Clearly, we’re in a digital age,” says Claire Green,
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USA WEEKEND • Dec 14-16,2007
president of the Parents’ Choice Foundation, one of
the event’s sponsors. “Kids are teething on remote
controls. They’re constantly exposed to digital media.
So let’s find out what makes sense. Let’s find out
what’s age appropriate and what encourages learn
ing, thinking, probing.”
There’s little doubt a technological revolution is
sweeping through children’s lives. The Entertainment
Software Association reports that nearly a third of Ameri
cans who play computer and/or video games are under
18. The Pew Internet & American Life Proj-
GOOD: The best video
games and electronic
toys can spur a child’s
imagination.
or, many would say, lack of activity is
doing to children dates back to the dawn of tele
vision. But it has accelerated with the spread of PCs
and Xboxes into millions of homes. Much of the con
cern has centered on content the violence and sex
ual nature of some video games.
But some critics have raised more fundamental
concerns about how electronic media affect men
tal development in children. Jane Healy, an educational
ect says 93% of teenagers are on the In
ternet. A study of the cellphone in
dustry found that up to 70% of 12-
to 14-year-olds now have their own
phones, as well as a significant
number of 5- to 9-year-olds.
According to a Kaiser Family
Foundation study, American kids
ages 8 to 18 average 44.5 hours
per week in front of some kind of
screen. The only thing that they
do more is sleep.
Concern about what this activity
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psychologist and the author of Failure to Connect:
How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds and
What We Can Do About It, believes they’re actually
wiring kids’ brains differently than in past generations.
Healy believes many of the most popular and excit
ing video games engage and build the basic “fight or
flee” part of the brain rather than the centers of higher
reasoning. Some games, she acknowledges, are more
reflective, and she encourages parents to play along
to determine whether a game requires intelligent rea
soning. In many cases, children “look like they’re
solving problems on a video game, but they’re really
just responding on a sensory level,” she says. “If you
watch kids on a computer, most of them, they’re just
Cover photo illustration by Saundra Giering/Eyeland for USA WEEKEND
photograph of boy by Banana Stock; butterflies by Stockbyte; circuits by photodisc