THE IMPACT OF TOUCH SCREENS ON EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT:
IS IT REALLY ALL BAD NEWS?
Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith
Department of Psycological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London
UK family ownership of touch screens has increased from 7% in 2011 to a whopping 71% in 2014 (Ofcom, 2014), and likely to be near 100% in 2016. Many are crying out against such usage, going as far as to call it “tantamount to child abuse”, but with sparse scientific data to back such claims!
In this talk, while mentioning some of the potential negative effects, I point to many potential positive effects of the fact that today’s babies are born into and rapidly adapting to an overwhelmingly digital world.
