Katie Dickison

LBST 391

Sally Walters

November 21, 2019

Reading Review 5

In researching the topic of parental use of technology and the effects on children’s development the one thing that has become apparent is the lack of research in the field. As I mentioned in my last review, this does have something to do with the fact that this is a fairly new topic of research, but nevertheless, I would think there would be more intrigue into conducting research based on how serious of an issue technology can be on a child’s development. With all that being said, the bigger issue then becomes that most of the research being conducted was mostly coming from academic journals, which is not accessible to parents; the people whose actions will directly affect our children. So the question then becomes what resources are out there for parents in informing them of these issues? And are there any guidelines for parents in terms of what they should and should not be doing in regards to technology use? Because if their actions could be endangering their children, they should be made more aware and be properly informed.

A lot of the resources out there for new parents can come from various publications or government programs. So I looked into some of these sources and what I found in terms of information about technological use was very limited. A lot of the different blogs and websites for parents rarely if at all mentioned anything about technology in regards to infants. One of the first websites that I visited was Healthy Families BC. They had a lot of tips for parenting during infant years, specifically, looking at physical development, cognitive development, and social and emotional development, which I was sure would include something about technology, but to my dismay there was nothing. A lot of the tips that they had for parents seemed to be very informative and gave instructions towards different ways of connecting with your child, but they never mentioned anything about technology. To me, it would be a given that none of these tasks would be successful in terms of developing a bond with your child if you brought a cellphone into the mix. But there may be a lot of parents out there that are not aware of this and the implications this may cause for them if these bonds are not connected. Every other forum that I looked into presented very similar information, but once again lacked anything about technology. However, I did come along a commonly used forum called Aha! Parenting that did mention the use of baby Einstein videos. The blog post states that “babies who watch any video are spending less time interacting with actual humans, so studies show that their language development is delayed, and we suspect there are other delay effects. Second, watching screens changes brain development. We don’t know enough yet, but screen use in the early years when the brain is taking shape so rapidly has definitely been associated with shorter concentration spans.”(Markham, n.d.) Now, I was very happy to see this included in the blog post, however, I was a little disappointed knowing this was the extent at which they had chosen to include something about technology. It seems as though the only information on the negative effects of technology comes from the Baby Einstein videos and ends there. Similarly, the Mayo Clinic also posted on their website about these DVDs for infants, but again nothing about parental use of technology! At this point, it seems as though most of the resources for new parents are not even aware of the implications either, which is very concerning. Hopefully, things change sooner rather than later.

                                                Works Cited

Babies (0-12 months): Healthy Families BC. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.healthyfamiliesbc.ca/home/articles/topic/babies-0-12-months.

Markham , L. (n.d.). What’s Best for Baby Brain Development? Retrieved from https://www.ahaparenting.com/ages-stages/babies/baby-activities-SAHM-stimulation.

Jay L. Hoecker, M. D. (2019, October 15). Do babies learn from videos? Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/infant-and-toddler-health/expert-answers/baby-einstein/faq-20058099.