This guide will address how the age of technology and overuse of tablets have led to negative impacts on kids.
The research thesis of this guide is to understand that while they are growing up in the age of technology, the overuse of tablets is negatively impacting kids developmentally, behaviorally, and socially.
The research questions addressed in this guide are:
What is the age of technology and how has it grown over the last several years?
Who is Gen Alpha and who are their parents?
In today’s day and age, technology is everywhere. It seems like it is the “survival of the fittest” when it comes to tech savvy-ness. This fact alone is the reason why some parents give their children unlimited access to the internet. The most common thing that kids do during the day is play on a tablet. Raising a generation of tech savvy people is the goal of many parents. This ideology comes with benefits as well as drawbacks. This research paper details how the overuse of tablets is affecting kids developmentally, behaviorally, and socially. The methodology behind this paper compiles a list of 12 academic sources found from scholarly cites, such as SVC databases and university cites. This guide also utilizes search engines such as Google Scholar and DuckDuckGo to find the best information possible to include. Upon researching, the results all point to the conclusion that tablets are negatively impacting kids. Research also points out that the initial intent of tablets was a learning device, however the over and mis-use of tablets have led to an overall bad outcome. Implications of this research conclude that this issue needs to be watched carefully in the future because there are multiple areas of life that this may affect. Since this is a problem that is affecting an entire generation, it can be hard to tell what long term effects might happen, thus why further research is imperative to the health of our world.
Today, we are living in the age of technology. We are constantly surrounded by technology and technology is constantly evolving. This boom of technology started in the early 2000's. Then in 2010, Apple released a revolutionary product. They called it the "iPad". Before this, nothing of its kind ever existed. Shortly after, other companies were racing to create their own versions to compete with it. The second "boom" of tablets happens in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tablets are now a household item for kids everywhere. Modern day parenting often uses tablets as a "crutch" for their children, giving them devices to soothe and distract them. This has led to over use of tablets and has caused problems in the younger generation, Gen Alpha. Gen Alpha is anyone born between 2010 and 2024. These problems have become so bad that Gen Alpha has been dubbed "the iPad kids".
This source provides a glimpse of specific data related to the parent’s attitudes about their kids and tablets. It also reveals how hard parenting has become in the “age of technology”. Looking at this graph can help explain why the overuse of technology is so prominent in kids' lives these days.
Source citation:
Auxier, B. (2020, July 28). Parenting children in the age of screens. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech.https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/07/28/parenting-children-in-the-age-of-screens/
