This week gives us a warning from the UK's Association of Teachers and Lecturers of young children losing core abilities as the result of tablet overuse. According to a Telegraph article:

• Children of three and four are able to manipulate a tablet screen, but "have little or no dexterity in their fingers" after hours of this activity and are not developing the dexterity to play with building blocks.
• "...some older children were unable to complete traditional pen and paper exams because their memory had been eroded by overexposure to screen-based technology."

Additionally, Colin Kinney, a teacher from North Ireland, included this statement as part of his presentation:

“I have spoken to a number of nursery teachers who have concerns over the increasing numbers of young pupils who can swipe a screen but have little or no manipulative skills to play with building blocks or the like, or the pupils who cannot socialise with other pupils but whose parents talk proudly of their ability to use a tablet or smartphone.”

As our advancements change how we live and learn, there are always unintended consequences. Last year, there were multiple reports, including this one from the Washington Post, on how cursive is no longer a part of the school curriculum as the skill has become obsolete and is being crowded out by lessons focused on technology or to increase scores for standardized testing.

At the same time, texting has been identified as damaging to student reading and writing development. That appears to be a false observation, as texting is now considered beneficial to reading and writing. Scholastic offers 8 reasons texting is good for our children and 5 activities to boost learning using this communication format.

All of these events are happening due to changes in how we communicate, work, and consume media. As parents and a society, we must choose how time, our most precious commodity, is being spent. While both warnings involve technology, there are two very different issues here.

Removing cursive lessons from the curriculum is trading one skill for another. Writing is a very important skill, but this is the lesser used method of writing - block letters being the dominant form - and is disappearing from modern use. While this is an unintended consequence, and sad in places where standardized testing is the cause, replacing these lessons with courses on how to best use technology might be beneficial. Technological advancements allow each of us to magnify our productivity, communication reach, and learning options many times.  Children, especially young children, accessing touch screens in place of dexterity-building play is a failure on many levels, including parenting choices and a society so enamored of our devices we put too much value on their use.

I hope these children can be identified and parents warned in order to change the child's play style and provide more traditional real-world opportunities. While apps can provide valuable educational opportunities, our hands and minds are linked as children explore and master their surroundings through manipulation and sensation, gaining visual-spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, and rudimentary physics, mathematics, and language through these methods. At this time, two-dimensional screens are unable to provide the same rich experience as real world objects and this is especially true for younger children.

As a society, there should be an ongoing awareness of how new advancements are impacting various groups. And young children, who are developing more quickly than older children and adults, should have their development time protected. It's a Brave New World, but also one where we simply don't know enough about human development to correctly identify the unintended consequence of each new invention. As responsible consumers, we should be wary of shifting too far from the norm, but should also keep an open mind for unintended benefits and support positive engagement.