LyrArc Article Gist
Melinda Gates says even though she spent years at Microsoft immersed in technology she was not prepared as a parent when she had her youngest child, who is part of what is called the iGeneration. This term is used for children born between 1995 and 2012. Many of the children born since 2000 find themselves in a new world of smartphones, iPhones, iPads and social media apps. Melinda Gates says she would have preferred to put computer devices in children's pockets at a later age, and worries about their effects on children. It exacerbates the problems of growing up and reduces some of the empathy that comes from face to face human contact. Parents have to find other ways of giving their children much needed empathy and understanding that is missing when children spend many hours in front of such tech devices. The professor who coined the word iGeneration says many of this group spend as much as 6 hours in front of these devices with different apps.

Yet the development of these children lags behind that of children of previous generations. It is hard not to say out loud that one worries about this- that the tech devices after all the hype really aren't that great when it comes to giving children an advantage in life. That human interaction, the use of imagination, motivation from family and school, live human interaction, cannot be replaced by staring at a screen for hours at a time. After all the hoopla about tech making children smarter and better, it is a huge let down. One must depend more on the basics that have served children and parents well over generations- the human interaction that spurs the imagination and motivates leading to exploration, reading on one's own, and curiosity to learn. Tech is just a tool, not the real thing.