The most Impactful Negative Effects of Technology on Children 

Technology is an appliance or service that does a task for people. It makes people grow professionally by providing information and communication as needed. “Young people in a study reported that social media helped them connect with peers, regardless of their physical location or the time of day. . However, some people do not like technology, and no everybody knows how to use it. For instance, some parents think that the children will know how to handle the latest technology because they are from another generation, but that’s no right. There are certain things that parents should be aware of. There are several negative effects of technology on children; the most impactful are health issues, the lack of communication with parents, and privacy and safety risk.

The first negative effect is the lack of physical activities leading the children to have health Problems. Everything starts when the parents give the devices to the young children, and they start using it to play video games and watch videos that do not help to develop their brains. “Prospective studies have causally linked media excess in young children with impulsive and aggressive behavior, obesity, and delayed development of language and reading skills ”. When a child is attached to a device, and they play an aggressive video game, such as grand theft auto they get very violent because it is a game about robbing and killing people, and they take it too serious.

 In addition, since those kids do less physical activities they get obese due to constant eating. Physically, children can experience body injury from being sat and stocked over their devices. A New York Times article about children and screen addiction, the American Association of Pediatrics concludes that, 'Children can develop pain in their fingers and wrists, narrowed blood vessels in their eyes and neck and back pain. '

Second, children are more into the social network creating lack of communication with parents. Screen media affect not only children but adults as well. “Parents become less adept at interacting with their youngsters as they carry on their own, adult functions of running a home. Media can disrupt the normal, attuned parent-child feedback that is the foundation of emotional regulation”. In other words, social networks are taking control over people's lives. Friends and families who are farther away are now closed, and the people closest to you are farther away. This is due to the overuse of the devices in the midst of social meetings. Children prefer to vent using the Internet or watching TV than communicating with their parents. And parents instead of putting attention to their children, they get to use the time to navigate on Facebook, Instagram, chat, etc.

Privacy and safety risk is the third negative impact of technology. “Research about the relation between risk and actual harm shows that exposure to sexual risks leads to harm in 36 % of the cases examined, whereas cyberbullying is harmful for 55 % of the children . Internet harassment thus constitutes a major public health issue, with aggressors facing multiple psychosocial challenges including poor parent–child relationships, substance use, and delinquency” Not every child know how to explore on the internet which it put in risk privacy and safety. Most teenagers do inappropriate usage of technology exposing themselves and their family by sharing private information, such as the home address, school information, where the parents work, etc. Nevertheless, youth children could also share or give information to a stranger by mistake, or because of their innocent minds. Many criminals take advantage of that, and they do crimes either kidnapping, stealing, or sexual assault.

Health issues, the lack of communication with parents, and privacy safety risk are the most impactful negative effect of technology on children. Some parents think that that technology makes everything perfect. Therefore, those effect impact children on society. A good idea to reduce the negative effects would be to avoid pleasing the children in all the devices they want, balancing the time of use, and supervising the videogames or websites or that they navigate.

References

• Allen, K. A., Ryan, T., Gray, D. L., McInerney, D. M., & Waters, L. (2014). Social media use and social connectedness in adolescents: The positives and the potential pitfalls. The Australian Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 31(1), 18-31. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/edp.2014.2
• Brody, J. E. (2015, July 06). Screen addiction is taking over control. Retrieved from https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/screem-addiction-is-taking-a-toll-on-children/
• Burke, M. G., M.D. (2010). The impact of screen media on children: An environmental health perspective. Psychiatric Times, 27(10), 40-46. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/759590315?accountid=134508
• Vanderhoven, E., Schellens, T., & Valcke, M. (2016). Decreasing risky behavior on social network sites: The impact of parental involvement in secondary education interventions. Journal of Primary Prevention, 37(3), 247-261. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10935-016-0420-0 

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