Whines. Screams. Ruckus. All of this can be a common scenario while eating at the dinner table, grocery shopping, or even just taking a car ride. Suddenly, with the wave a hand there is instant silence. What happened to bring about order from disorder, this instant calm from a state of frenetic cacophony? Pacifiers? No. Instead these disruptions are remedied by a tablet or a smartphone. Is the use of these devices advantageous for a child’s social self, or is it just a bandaid that serves as a temporary solution for larger problem? One of the biggest questions that parents face today is whether or not children should be permitted to use smartphones and tablet devices. In the past, the most pressing issues for parents involved restrictions
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Bronfenbrenner would consider if a child has a specific need for such devices due to a child’s medical or physical condition. For example, an autistic child who might have to use a facilitator to communicate might find enjoyment in a tablet, since it is familiar and does not rely on verbal communication; a child who can’t walk and therefore cannot play with other children may also be drawn to technology. We only need to look to one of our classmates to see how technology is used to communicate. Apart from biology, one must also examine the interactions within a child’s family. If a child does not have siblings and his parents are working, that technological device might take the place of human companionship. An astute observer might note that if this child was having difficulty relating to others, there might be a need to incorporate more playtime or sports into the child’s day. Doctor Gary Smalls, director of the Longevity Center of UCLA, stresses the necessity of being around and interacting with other people. “If people spend too much time with technology and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, it risks hindering the development of certain communication skills” (Smalls 2). In order for a …show more content…
It works so well because it looks at all the influences that connect to and revolve around a child. If one were to use Erikson’s stage theory for example, one could not analyze this problem properly. Erikson’s theory divides life into a series of stages, each one marked with a specific confrontation (Cooper, “The Development of the Self, pages 13-19). The only stage that could be applicable to this problem would be the infant stage, where a child might not learn to completely trust a parent and therefore not bond with him or her. The result could be a feeling of a void or loneliness, where a child might turn to a tech toy for company. The rest of the stages however, do not apply because they center on specific types of confrontations that do not take in the totality of the child’s universe. Maslow, too, does not offer an adequate scope for this issue that we face today. His theory barely takes into consideration the social influences that impact individual children. Each child has a different biological and social makeup, but Maslow’s “hierarchy is presumed to be universal; that is, it is the same for everyone across all of time, space, culture, and so on .” Additionally, “the pinnacle of human development in this model, that of self-actualization, implies that an
Bronfenbrenner would consider if a child has a specific need for such devices due to a child’s medical or physical condition. For example, an autistic child who might have to use a facilitator to communicate might find enjoyment in a tablet, since it is familiar and does not rely on verbal communication; a child who can’t walk and therefore cannot play with other children may also be drawn to technology. We only need to look to one of our classmates to see how technology is used to communicate. Apart from biology, one must also examine the interactions within a child’s family. If a child does not have siblings and his parents are working, that technological device might take the place of human companionship. An astute observer might note that if this child was having difficulty relating to others, there might be a need to incorporate more playtime or sports into the child’s day. Doctor Gary Smalls, director of the Longevity Center of UCLA, stresses the necessity of being around and interacting with other people. “If people spend too much time with technology and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, it risks hindering the development of certain communication skills” (Smalls 2). In order for a …show more content…
It works so well because it looks at all the influences that connect to and revolve around a child. If one were to use Erikson’s stage theory for example, one could not analyze this problem properly. Erikson’s theory divides life into a series of stages, each one marked with a specific confrontation (Cooper, “The Development of the Self, pages 13-19). The only stage that could be applicable to this problem would be the infant stage, where a child might not learn to completely trust a parent and therefore not bond with him or her. The result could be a feeling of a void or loneliness, where a child might turn to a tech toy for company. The rest of the stages however, do not apply because they center on specific types of confrontations that do not take in the totality of the child’s universe. Maslow, too, does not offer an adequate scope for this issue that we face today. His theory barely takes into consideration the social influences that impact individual children. Each child has a different biological and social makeup, but Maslow’s “hierarchy is presumed to be universal; that is, it is the same for everyone across all of time, space, culture, and so on .” Additionally, “the pinnacle of human development in this model, that of self-actualization, implies that an