Responsibility Key Humanware Need for Technology
THUNDER BAY – TECH LIFE – Simplicity of use. If you watch a young child with an iPad, you can wonder if somehow the product design team at Apple were able to tap into the mind of a youngster to develop a product that is easy to use.
The Apple iPad is simple enough to use that even a two-year-old can navigate the web in fairly short order. Tablets, smartphones, and computers are increasingly replacing the television as a tool that parents use for keeping their children occupied.
With the iPad, the design allows for a wide-range of use that really makes the iPad a tool for education – often for young people it is like a small portable television and with the right choices by parents in terms of the videos that their young children can view, it is a great tool.
That simplicity of use however comes with a need for supervision and responsibility, and even common sense.
Of course moderation in viewing is important, and for young children putting in place the parental blocks and restricting the amount of time online is key too.
Of course those guidelines also apply for teenagers, and frankly for adults too.
Too much time in front of the computer playing video games, just like watching television can be a distraction from physical activities outside along with schoolwork or other important things that need attention as well.
There remains the need for parents to focus on the amount of technology-time that their children have, as well as making sure that the content of that online time is monitored.
Online predators are a real factor in today’s world, and social media has made it very easy for those who are willing to attract and take innocence away from children if the parents are not willing to step up and invest the needed time.
It is also key for parents to realize that what they post online is likely to impact their children as well, especially teenagers. With social media – in particular Facebook, posting pictures and videos and comments becomes, for many too simple.
Do Adults Go Too Far on Social Media?
Carolyn Ievers-Landis, PhD, a child psychologist at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital states, “The Internet is proof you’re never too old to embarrass your children with questionable social media posts and outrageous pictures as commonplace as Donald Trump stories on cable news. But the surprising part is many of these pictures and posts aren’t coming from children but rather from their parents.”
“We’re all kind of learning together,” adds Levers-Landis, “And it’s almost like children are learning faster than the adults in some regards.”
Dr. Levers-Landis says parents need to monitor their children’s social media activity but they might also need to monitor themselves. Parents still might not fully understand the reach and permanence of social media, or so it seems.
“They’re not thinking about their children or the peers of their children seeing their posts,” she says.
Parents are not only posting embarrassing pictures of themselves but also posting embarrassing pictures of their children. “It really is important to ask your child if you’re going to post something about them, that you’re going to post a picture, even just write something because they might not want that information shared,” commented Dr. Levers-Landis. “As adults, it’s this whole new era of having to really monitor yourself even more so and think about what sort of role model are you being for your child.”
