Children need stronger personal bonds with caring adults. Yet powerful technologies are distracting children and adults from each other. They need time for active, physical play; hands-on lessons of all subjects, especially arts and language. Experience the nature. This is essential for healthy child development to flourish in free atmosphere. Yet many schools and parents opt for Computers distracting the child reading and cutting the minimal offerings in developing areas to shift time and money to expensive, unproven technology! Researchers reveal Computers pose serious health hazards to children. The risks include repetitive stress injuries, eyestrain, obesity, social isolation, and, for some, long-term damage to physical, emotional, or intellectual development. Our children thrive to spend even more time staring at screens increase sight problems. The social and educational need of the low-income children is at stake too. Quite obvious, the drive of Computerization emphasize only one of the human capacities – analytical and abstract thinking of child develops late but it aims to jump start prematurely! Computers are the most sophisticated thinking tools ever designed. They were developed with adult bodies, as well as adult mental capacities, in mind. Even for adults, their intensive use is related to job stress and serious injuries. But emphasizing computers for children, whose growing bodies are generally more vulnerable to stress, presents several challenges to healthy development. The current focus on computers can distract schools and families from attending to children’s true needs, and can exacerbate existing problems.
The computer, like the TV, can be a mesmerizing babysitter. But many children, overwhelmed by the volume of data and flashy special effects of the World Wide Web and much software, have trouble focusing on any one task.
Must five-year-olds be trained on computers today to get the high-paying jobs of tomorrow?
For a relatively small number of children with certain disabilities, technology offers benefits. But for the majority, computers pose health hazards and potentially serious developmental problems. Of particular concern is the growing incidence of disabling repetitive stress injuries among college students who began using computers in childhood. The National Science Board reported in 1998 that prolonged exposure to computing environments may create “individuals incapable of dealing with the messiness of reality, the needs of community building, and the demands of personal commitments.”
Physical health
Emphasizing the use of computers in childhood can place children at increased risk for repetitive stress injuries, visual strain, obesity, and other unhealthy consequences of a sedentary lifestyle. Some development experts also warn that increasing the time that children spend on computers, given the hours they already sit in front of televisions and video games, may contribute to developmental delays in children’s ability to coordinate sensory impressions and movement and to make sense of the results. That could in turn lead to language delays and other learning problems. This health hazard demands immediate attention but its only a concern as every person is in a ‘Computer rat race!’
Muscular-skeletal injuries
Long hours at a keyboard, constantly repeating a few fine hand movements, may overtax children’s hands, wrists, arms, and neck. That, in turn, may stress their developing muscles, bones, tendons, and nerves. For the user, the computer is a kind of straitjacket into which the body must adapt itself. The eyes stare at an unvarying focal length, drifting back and forth across the screen. Fingers move rapidly across the keyboard or are poised, waiting to strike. The head sits atop the spine balanced, in the words of one physician, like a bowling ball. Built for motion humans do not respond well sitting nearly immobile for hours at a time. Children who play games on computers for long hours, fight with the ctrl keys, jump with space or run right-left or topsy-turvy through the arrow keys are sure to freeze with vision, pain in hands and more! There may be greater risk. That’s because their bones, tendons, nerves, muscles, joints, and soft tissues are still growing.
Vision problems
Computer is a strain on child’s eyes and developing visual system and actually makes learning to read, a more complication. Eyestrain experienced by computer operators is related to screen glare and to the screen being either too bright or too dim compared to the ambient light. Maintaining a constant focus on the same distance, at the same angle, inhibits blinking even more than does reading from a book, probably because the monitor presents a vertical reading surface and because our eyes are open wider, making it more of an effort to blink Children or adult, all face visual fatigue from long spells on computer screen. Expecting beginning writers to poke a letter key and then passively watch a letter appear on a screen can be hard on their eyes and an extra perceptual challenge, and thus may actually hamper the process of learning to write and read. Their muscular and nervous system are in developing process too. It’s not until about the age of 11 or 12 that their capacity to balance and coordinate the movement and the focusing of both eyes together is fully mature. A pair of glasses may correct the immediate problem. But myopia itself may be a risk factor for other visual problems. It can interfere with children’s sports activities and enjoyment of nature, and even limit their choice of career
Lack of exercise and obesity
Many health professionals believe childhood obesity has increased lately in large part because children spend more time sitting in front of electronic media and less time actively playing, at home and school, and because they consume so many high-fat, high-sugar foods and junk stuff. Be it a television or Video game or Computers, children have found their way into modern technology with a bang. Children are prone to diabetes, a higly risk factor due to obesity and reports say may American children are on rise to diabetes. Lack of exercise is major problem as children are at loss of time divulged into many activities. Classroom learning is soon getting bookish and mugged up lessons.