[Nettime-bold] "Computers Rot Our Children's Brains"

[David Mandl <dmandl@panix.com>]

[Observer UK news]

Computers rot our children's brains: expert

Anthony Browne, Health Editor
Sunday April 16, 2000

Computers can rot young children's brains, a parenting expert warned
yesterday. The warning is set to alarm parents who believe they must
introduce their children to computers at ever younger ages.

Dr Jane Healy, an educational psychologist from America, told a
conference in London that instead of helping to advance a child's
knowledge, computers can stunt the healthy development of a child's
mind, reducing attention span and hampering language skills. Parents
who feel guilty about not buying their child a computer and expensive
'learning software' will be relieved.

Healy told the Parent Child 2000 conference that parents should limit
the time youngsters spend using computers and watching
television. Rather than living in an 'unchallenging, two-dimensional
world', they should interact with others around them.

Demolishing the hype of what she calls the 'technology-pushers', Healy
condemned the conventional wisdom that declares every child must have
a computer at home and in school. Studies have shown that children
under the age of seven are likely to be better off without them.

Dr Healy told the conference: 'It is playing with the parental
hormone, guilt, to make them believe that if a child doesn't have a
computer by the age of three it's not going to get a job.

'But quite to the contrary, it is limiting children's physical
development and taking too much time away from what they should be
doing.  They are, in fact, damaging the brain development in the sense
that it's going to make it harder for them to learn at school.'

In the US, schools spent more than $4 billion on computers last year,
and the market for 'edutainment' software is growing at about 30 per
cent a year. Tony Blair has promised to connect every UK school to the
Internet.

Rye College in Watford runs lessons for 18-month-old infants, using
software aimed at the very young. They learn about shapes, colours and
simple words. At two and a half, children begin programming and basic
word processing.

But Healy said: 'Most of this software ... is doing more harm than
good.'



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