Recently an article has been making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter and I hesitate to even link to it, but here you go: “10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12“. In the spirit of full disclosure I read this as a former classroom educator, a current advocate for the appropriate use of technology in classrooms employed by an early childhood technology company, and the mother of two children under 12–and I was appalled.
To quote the great Admiral Ackbar, “It’s a trap!” This article is pure hyperbolic click-bait. Titled and designed to get the maximum views while glossing over an important, legitimate issue–appropriate technology use for young children. Furthermore, it’s the perfect example of why you should read articles like this with a critical eye. David Kleeman authored a fantastic rebuttal on Huffington Post and quite accurately sums it up as a “piece [that] pretty well defines ‘hack-academic’ writing, in which an author throws lots of learned-sounding terms and citations at a lay reader, while obscuring misinterpretations and fuzzy logic.” While Kleeman, a senior fellow at the Fred Rogers Center, lists ten reasons Rowan’s article is flawed, I’d like to use it to talk about research literacy, dissect this article critically (a useful skill no matter where you get your news), and then talk about what’s really going on in technology and early education so you can be a lay reader no more!
When approaching any article that claims to be academic in nature just remember to do the W.A.R.P. That’s Where it printed, who was the Author, where did they get their Research, and what’s the Point. 
So let’s jump right in.
This article information is taken from the JAMA Pediatrics magazine and lists the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number as well as the publication date and a Conflict of Interest Disclosure
1. Where was it printed?
Huffington Post is generally a reputable source of news information and opinion. That this post was published in their “Blog” section is the first clue that this should be treated as an opinion piece rather than scientific “fact”. Generally if your source comes from an association’s magazine or a literary journal you should be able to find clear indications of whether the piece is supposed to be considered research or opinion. Sometimes they will even list a conflict of interest disclosure.
2. Who’s the author?
Cris Rowan is a certified Occupational Therapist based in British Columbia, Canada. She’s also the CEO of Zone’in Programs, LLC, which is not mentioned anywhere in her article or her bi-line. If you make it to the end, there is a note that you may contact Rowan at info@zonein.ca, although it is hardly a prominent statement. If you follow the source to Zone’in’s website, the mission statement says:
“Children are the future of our planet. Through modern technology, we have unconsciously created a virtual reality that children call “home”, a reality devoid of connection and human interaction. TV, video games, internet and cell phones are now the teachers of our children, not schools and parents (emphasis added). The result has been an alarming increase in physical, mental, social and academic impairments. Now is the time to plant the seed for children to learn in a new and conscious way.
Teaching children to bring awareness to themselves, so they know who they are, creates a strong healthy foundation for learning. Using their energy in positive productive ways, children learn to create balance and wholeness of body, mind and spirit.
Children are our future, and there is no future in virtual reality.”
Now, everyone is entitled to an opinion including those voiced in Zone’in’s mission statement, their line of DVDs, computer programs, or resources guides. However, this conflict of interest is valuable context to keep in mind when viewing the rest of the list.
3. When and where is the research from?
Any “research-based” plan warrants close attention to its citations. Research articles, especially ones that use language like “caused by,” “is detrimental to,” and/or “is implicated as a causal factor in” should have relatively recent experimental design research studies or carefully controlled longitudinal studies to back up those claims. We can only determine fact and causation by testing the same information over and over again, while finding the same results. It is notoriously difficult to conduct those sorts of studies when it comes to real-world behaviors, such as media use and “research is simply unable to keep up with the pace of technological advances…” (Christakis 2014). At the end of the day, almost without exception, social science research can only study and report on correlation not causation.
As for timely and recent articles, spurred by the rapidly shifting nature of technology, the average date of the studies cited in Rowan’s article is 2009. Why does this matter? Dimitri Christakis, a member of the executive committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Children and Media is one of the most often cited researchers mentioned in Rowan’s article. However, all of the papers Rowan cites are at least three years old. Just a few days after Rowan published her article Christakis published an opinion piece in JAMA Pediatrics “Interactive Media Use at Younger than the Age of 2 Years: Time to Rethink the American Academy of Pediatrics Guideline?” He acknowledges the changing landscape of interactive technology and closes with, “I believe that judicious use of interactive media is acceptable for children younger than the age of 2 years.” While Rowan had no way of knowing that this article would be published, when you encounter an academic article that contains older research, it’s always a good idea to see what the latest research shows.
Finally, all research should be pertinent to the topic being discussed. Although the article calls for a specific ban on “handheld devices” many of the linked cited studies were specifically conducted around passive television exposure (Pagani 2010, Christakis 2001, Feng 2011, Christakis 2004) which is still discouraged by education experts (Christakis 2014, NAEYC & Fred Rogers Center 2012). One of the most troubling sections for citation was Reason 5 (“Mental Illness”). After naming a veritable laundry list of negative impacts of technology, five works are cited but only four are linked. One of those cited works is Shin 2011 the full title of which is “Comparison of Problematic Internet and Alcohol Use and Attachment Styles Among Industrial Workers in Korea”. The inclusion of troubling statistics about the rate of pediatric mental illness in Canada is a red herring. To quote Kleeman again, “Citing scary statistics that are completely unrelated to your argument is a bit of misdirection designed to evoke emotion, but does nothing to support a factual argument.” The linked research makes no effort to assess the causes of mental illness in these children, nor refers to technology as a cause. This type of ‘fact’ seriously degrades the validity of the entire section, if not the entire post. Clearly these articles were cherry-picked to support tenuous claims–something to be wary of in any article that only presents one side of an issue.
4. What’s the point?
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Truly academic research articles have a very focused scope and purpose that are clearly defined in the outset. Ostensibly this article calls on “parents, teachers and governments to ban the use of all handheld devices for children under the age of 12 years.” If we break it down logically, which handheld devices are specifically targeted by Rowan? Tablet computers? iPads? Handheld gaming devices? Smart phones? Would this ban extend to all countries?
Let’s consider the population mentioned in the hypothetical ban. Assuming the only governmental adoption was in the United States, all children under 12 is quite a chunk of the population. According to 2012 US population estimates, it’s nearly 53 million children. Rowan’s proposal also doesn’t address children with special needs. In an article for The Exceptional Parent magazine, The Alliance for Technology Access has this to say about technological access: “Having a disability no longer has to mean that things cannot be done– it means that we can find new ways to get them done.”
The ambiguous ban on “handheld devices” is complicated by a seemingly arbitrary age restriction. Why 12 years old? If the brain is “in a state of rapid development to 21 years of age” why not extend the ban to 21 year-olds? The AAP only “discourages” screen use for infants and toddlers aged 0-2. Kleeman makes an excellent point in his own rebuttal that,
“Handheld devices are the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of modern life: a safety device to keep in contact with family and friends, a camera for documenting the world, a window to connect with grandparents across miles…an education tool…To remove that entirely from children up to 12 would cut off an incredibly powerful resource.”
Tl;dr (I just skimmed this post, what’s the point?)
Congratulations! You’re on your way to no longer being a lay reader. By pausing to consider what you’ve just read, conducting a quick W.A.R.P. analysis and seriously contemplating the sources of your information you’ve done a great deal more than the average reader.
I would encourage you to read Kleeman’s response, “10 Reasons Why We Need Research Literacy, Not Scare Columns” in its entirety. He does an excellent job addressing each point of Rowan’s original post, and frankly, it’s a great read!
Now, let’s talk about the real issue that Rowan is addressing. Technology use and screen time in general is a serious issue that still troubles many parents and educators. The technological landscape is rapidly shifting and the educational technology industry, educators, researchers, and parents all struggle with how to communicate best practices and what is and is not appropriate. Ultimately, all you can do is do your homework and use your best judgement. I would suggest considering these points when drawing your own conclusions.
1. “Not all screens are created equal.” In their 2012 position statement, NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) the Fred Rogers Center make a clear distinction between “passive” media consumption (sitting a child in front of a screen) and “interactive” media use which has the potential to “facilitate active and creative use by young children and to encourage social engagement with other children and adults.” Used in purposeful ways as a part of an overall curriculum, interactive technology has the power to create a rich, highly interactive, inclusive environment. How interactive is the technology that your children play with?
2. It isn’t just what’s on the screen. Reputable studies about integrating technology in the early childhood classroom (like Parette 2010, Daugherty 2014, McManis & Gunnewig 2012) emphasize the need for professional development for educators in addition to high-quality, interactive content. Knowing how to use the resources that are available to you is just as important as having the resources in the first place. How comfortable are you with technology and integrating it into meaningful discussion or your curriculum?
3. Technology is here to stay. Educator Jacqui Murray pointed out in her recent blog post “8 Education Tools That Are Going Away” that the new Common Core Curriculum mentions “technology in the classroom” and “digital devices” at least 27 times. The standards themselves state that Kindergarteners, “with guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.” How prepared do you feel for the future?
While there are certainly other aspects of technology in early education to discuss, I think I’ve made my point. Instead of posting articles that call for an all out ban on technology, news outlets like the Huffington Post could (and should) do more to promote thoughtful, purposeful discussions surrounding children and technology. Posting one-sided content with misleading research and reactionary statements only does a discredit to Huffington Post and makes the jobs of educators more difficult. I was incredibly pleased to see that they published Kleeman’s rebuttal…and far less excited to see that Rowan has continued to use Huffington Post as a soapbox for her quasi-academic proposal by posting a German translation of her article.
Here at Hatch, we are committed to furthering reputable knowledge about educational technology with early learners as well as the overall field of early childhood education. We keep an up-to-date list of external research and policy publications and invite you to bookmark and share our publications page.
When you see someone retweeting or sharing this article, I hope you will take a moment and ask them to do the W.A.R.P. If we can elevate ourselves beyond lay readers and become more research literate we can get beyond scare tactics and click-bait and get to the issues that really matter. I hope you’ll spread the word.
Happy Learning!
The post It’s a Trap! Research Literacy, Avoiding the Bait, and Learning the W.A.R.P. appeared first on Hatch.
