Delhi for kids: Technology should not stand in the way of human relations

Updated on: Thursday, February 16, 2012

Kids of the net-age don't start their sentences with capital letters. They use 'U' for "you" , '+' for "and" and don't see anything wrong with it. And, language is not the only casualty. Experts say that overdependence on technology affects relationships, desensitises children to violence and prevents them from developing memory.

What worries clinical psychiatrist Avdesh Sharma is that kids get addicted to technology often "to the exclusion of human relations". "If they go to a smaller city where they don't have continuous access to the internet, they don't know what to do and experience severe anxiety." The easy access to porn is worrying too. "A 14 yearold boy was hooked to porn sites after his parents banned him from accessing the net. He'd stay up late at night to go online," says Sharma. Too much time spent kicking and punching on video games can "desensitise" the child to violence . "The rising trend of bullying and violence in schools could have something to do with it," he says.

Time spent online is time taken off from outdoor sports. "If you go out and play, you learn teamwork, you learn to cooperate and compromise and to plan. You'll never be tolerant and patient if, in early life, you've never been in situations where you've had to learn these things," argues Sharma.

"What you speak, you do not write. There should be no short forms or slang terms," Lesley Young from Frank Anthony Public School tells students. Young has found students using "i" instead of 'I' , "&" or "+" for "and" and three dots for "therefore." "Short-forms and SMS-language slip inadvertently into kids' writing. We circle words while correcting papers and students are amazed to know that they've written them in a wrong way," says Anita Chaudhry who teaches history at DPS Indirapuram.

Kids are, as Sharma puts it, "too comfortable with an external brain." "The brain stores some information, deletes some. With the information overload, memory that ought to be developed, isn't being developed. People can't even remember the contact details of 10 close friends and if their cellphone is lost, they are too." Low attention-span , first caused by television, is now being exacerbated by the internet. But the biggest problem, says Sharma, is that the "discrepancy between school-work - which mainly involves textbooks - and what kids are used to otherwise is a bit too much for them to handle."

Tech hazards

Spellings & language skills first casualties. Kids carrying their cavalier attitude to language into classroom Attention spans, that started shortening with television, getting even shorter with internet Porn easily accessible and highly addictive Violence in video games and media desensitizes child, lowers empathy Lack of outdoor activities leading to heath issues. Kids missing out on learning about teamwork, cooperation Children becoming dependent on external memory

Times of India

Delhi for kids: Technology should not stand in the way of human relations

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