Parental Guide: How Does Technology Affect Your Kids' Development？

Give your child a smartphone, and within a few days, your child will be able to operate the smartphone better than you. Technology has become an integral part of human life, and it is contributing immensely to child development.

That is why elementary schools are keen on bringing children and technology together. Using technology to teach child lessons in a more interactive and creative way has become a regular practice.

Even computer as a subject has been introduced to make children aware of modern technology. However, there are positive and negative effects of technology on child development. The negative effects can overpower the positive impacts if children are left alone with technological gadgets.

In this article, we will weigh the impacts and effects of technology on children and what parents can do to protect their kids from negative effects.

• Part 1. Children and Technology: Positive Effects
• Part 2. Children and Technology: Negative Effects
• Part 3. How Parents Can Help Their Kids?
• 1. Use a Professional Parental Control
• 2. Talk To Your Kid Regularly
• 3. Teach Your Kid About Healthy Device Habits
• 4. Plan Fun Activities For Your Kids
• Part 4. Conclusion

Children and Technology: Positive Effects

The list of positive impacts can be endless if it is used properly by kids under parental guidance. Here is how positively technology impacts child growth and development.

1. Enhance Critical Thinking

According to a study conducted on thousands of kids, the IQ(Intelligence Quotient) of the current generation is higher than the previous generation.

The main contributing factor is IQ gap has been found to be technology. IQ is a direct measure of a kid's reasoning and critical thinking abilities.

In today's world, kids are surrounded by technological devices, and they are acting as stimuli to get them interested in critical thinking in performing activities on those devices.

2. Better Learning

Kids are always interested in learning practical things instead of learning textual and bookish stuff. Instead of textual learning, teachers can now teach and explain topics with visual aids thanks to technological innovation.

Kids are always keen themselves to learn different useful things from the internet where there are online tutorials with proper visual explanations and examples. Learning from such life-like illustrations is always interesting and stays in the memory of the kids for a long time.

3. Proper Mental Development

A kid becomes sharper and smarter with proper mental development. However, proper mental development does not always come from studying but from various activities that the kid does outside his study.

Thanks to technological advancement, there are loads of brain games available for kids to play such as solving puzzles, doing fun exercises, playing memory games, and study-related quizzes and activities where he can apply whatever he has learned.

4. Become Smarter

Kids by nature are shying, and keeping them engaged in studying all the time makes them introverted and dull. On the contrary, kids can feel some air of confidence when they interact through social media platforms and instant messaging apps.

Kids even play online games in groups and interact with one another in real-time which helps them to break free of social anxiety and become smarter and develop a better personality under proper parental guidance.

5. Discovering Inner Talent

There are many who do not excel in studying but have hidden talents where they stand out in the crowd. Technological platforms allow the kids to explore different avenues and discover their inner talent which they can pursue from the very beginning and become experts in those areas.

For example, kids are learn coding, drawing, playing musical instruments, and much more and fall in love with them and become truly talented in any of them to take their talent to the next level.

Children and Technology: Negative Effects

While the positive effects show that technology and child development go hand in hand, sometimes, overexposure and misuse of technology can lead child development on the wrong path. Here are some negative effects of technology to prove the point further.

1. Low Attention Span

When you use technology, you can get the job done instantly which otherwise could have taken a long time manually. Similarly, a child's mind starts to think and act like activities performed by technological devices.

It always thinks of doing a job quickly, but some jobs demand constant focus and longer concentration such as studying. Overexposure to technology lowers the attention span in kids which brings down their patience, focus, and concentration.

2. Addiction to Technology

Too much of anything is harmful, and technology is no exception. Overexposure to technological devices such as smartphones can make the kids addicted to the devices to such an extent that they keep using them throughout the day.

In fact, they are ready to lose their studying and sleeping time. Naturally, the effects are going to be visible in academic performance as well as physically such as eye issues, neck pain, numbness in hands, headache, obesity, and much more.

3. Limited Physical Activity

A perfect balance in virtual and physical activity brings the best of mental and physical development in kids. Too many virtual activities on smartphones limit physical activities in the real world. Naturally, kids tend to become unhealthy and develop obesity.

Besides, minimal social interaction for long creates social anxiety in them. They will not learn the way to communicate and show proper manners and behavior in front of others for which they can suffer going forward. Besides, kids start to live a parallel life in the virtual world and start believing in things that can never come to fruition.

4. Victim of Cyberbullying

While social media platforms and instant messaging apps can make kids socially active and break free of their social anxiety, if not properly monitored and regulated, kids can become victims of cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying is common on social media apps and instant messaging groups where kids are bullied based on their physical attributes and social behavior. Cyberbullying pushes victims to social isolation and even depression, and some even entertain suicidal thoughts as they become a subject of joking and bullying all the time.

5. Negative Behavioral Changes

When kids play violent video games regularly, their minds get used to aggressive reactions to different scenarios. Besides, there is no dearth of inappropriate content on the web. Starting from adult content to violent and negative content, kids get affected deeply and you can see how such overexposure leads to negative behavioral changes.

Kids start getting agitated instantly, pick up fights with friends, use foul language, and behave aggressively and inappropriately with even family members.

Apart from these, there are privacy and safety issues, reduced sleep time and family time, worsening of relationships with parents, and much more. The list of negative effects can go endless and this is what makes the parents worried.

How Parents Can Help Their Kids?

It is quite natural for parents to be worried about how technology affects children. In order to ensure that technology affects your kid positively, you have to monitor your kid's smartphone activities remotely from your device.

Once you let your kid know that you are monitoring all his phone activities, your kid will be more careful as well as responsible in avoiding inappropriate content and activities intentionally. Once the negative factors are thrown out, your kid will prosper with the help of technology.

1. Use a Professional Parental Control

The best way to prevent the negative effects of technology on children is through a parental control app. You install the app on your kid's phone, and you can monitor all his phone activities and restrict certain phone activities after reviewing their activities to prevent any negative effects.

We recommend KidsGuard Pro for Android as it is clearly the best professional parental control app available with all the features you need to track your kid's phone activities perfectly.

How KidsGuard Pro for Android Can Help Protect Your Kids?

Here are the features of KidsGuard Pro for Android app that lets you monitor your kid's phone activities and protect them from wrong doings.

• View Social Media Apps

You can keep monitoring your kid's social media interactions to find out if your kid is a victim of cyberbullying. If he is talking to strangers or using inappropriate language and sharing objectionable photos and videos, you can talk to your kid and take action accordingly.

KidsGuard Pro lets you track almost all the popular social media apps starting from Facebook, WhatsApp to Snapchat, and even Tinder.

• Track Call Logs and Record Phone Calls

You should constantly monitor who your kid is speaking to on the phone or who is calling your kid. KidsGuard Pro lets you check your kid's phone call logs with full details.

Not just that, you can even record the call conversations in real-time and listen to them whenever you want. You should take steps if your kid is speaking to strangers or if the language or the topic of conversation is not appropriate.



• Track Phone Location

When your kid is away from you and he/she has a smartphone, you feel a sense of security because your kid can call you up during emergency situations. KidsGuard Pro goes one step ahead and lets you track your kid's location in real-time.

If you cannot monitor live location all the time, you can set a virtual fence containing the safe areas where your kid generally visits. If your kid crosses the Geofence, you can act immediately.

• Read Text Messages

Along with social media messages, you should monitor your kid's text messages to find out if he/she is interacting with strangers, the type of language being used, the topic of conversation, and if you need to intervene to prevent potential harm.

KidsGuard Pro allows you to track every message sent and received on the target phone with proper formatting.



• View Browsing History

We have stated earlier that the internet is a place where there is no dearth of inappropriate content for kids. By tracking the browsing history of your kid's phone through KidsGuard Pro, you can understand the type of websites he/she is visiting and the type of content your kid is searching and going through.

• Take Secret Photos

One of the unique features of KidsGuard Pro is that you let you get full remote access to your kid's phone camera. This means you can check his/her surroundings any time you want through your kid's phone camera from your phone or computer.

You can even take live photos and confront your kid regarding his/her whereabouts and the persons he/she was interacting with.



• Capture Screenshots

Kids are smart these days, and they can fool their parents by deleting their wrongdoings so that their parents can never track them.

However, KidsGuard Pro allows parents to remotely take live screenshots of their kid's phone so that they can know what exactly their kid is doing on the phone at any given moment.

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2. Talk To Your Kid Regularly

Parents should focus on building a friendly relationship with their kids so that their kids can feel comfortable sharing everything with their parents. You should arrange family time every day to talk to your kid and discuss how the day went, what all your kid has done throughout the day, what he is planning for the next day. The conversation should be very casual and not an interview.

You can learn more about his friends, his online activities, new things he is learning, and likewise. The main objective here is to know is how much time he is spending with gadgets, what he is doing on the gadgets, and if he is getting addicted to technology or becoming a victim of online threats.

That is how you can understand the effects of technology on children and if any measures need to be taken.

3. Teach Your Kid About Healthy Device Habits

Kids learn things from what they see in their surroundings. Since kids are mostly at home, they learn habits from their parents. That is why parents have to be role models to their kids and show them healthy device habits. For example, you should not be using your phone when you are eating together and having family time together.

Similarly, you should not constantly be messaging on your phone, be active on social media, and be playing video games in your leisure time. You can always do these things when you are alone but not in front of your kids.

If you are always a creative video, you can see it with your kid so that there is less privacy between you and your kids. The way your kid sees you handling gadgets, he will surely learn from you and be like you because parents are always role models for their kids.

4. Plan Fun Activities For Your Kids

To reduce the negative technology impact on child growth and development, you should plan fun activities for your kid in the physical world. The reason why kids get addicted to smartphones is that they have nothing fun to do in the physical world. That is why when you plan fun activities, he is surely going to get involved, and his dependency on gadgets will decrease.

You can also learn new things with your kid, and kids love when they get to spend time with their parents doing fun activities and learning new things together. Therefore, the role of parents is extremely significant, and you should plan your work accordingly to make sufficient family time to spend with your kids.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you have understood the positive and negative effects of technology on child development. It is an essential part of child development, and therefore, you cannot block technology from your child's life.

Instead, you can easily eliminate the negative effects by constantly monitoring your kid's activities with technological gadgets. KidsGuard Pro is the best tool you have for complete parental monitoring and control over your kid's activities in the virtual world of technology.

Monitor Now View Demo