Nowadays, with so many innovative software development companies which provide amazing software solutions for different industries, including Educational, it would be strange and unusual if students won’t use cool apps and websites for their study. But every good aspect has a bad side too, and with the increasing use of technology for study, some children may forget about studying itself.
Children waste too much time with their computers
Technology mostly has a negative impact on student learning because it only deviates their minds to unnecessary regions and wastes their important time that can be used for doing their homework or studying. Children have started to sit in front of their personal computers or laptops when they get back from school and they “glue” themselves onto it for hours sometimes even missing their meals both chatting and emailing their friends or playing online games.
Computers have other issues, too, with pornography and games just a click of a button away. Addiction to these corruptions would directly affect their education. According to Alan France, writing in Understanding Youth in Late Modernity, (McGraw-Hill International, 2007), “Across new media, we can see a range of fears and anxieties: fears over sexual exploitation – especially over the young gaining access to pornography….dangers of been corrupted…"
In the present world 95% of the students have easy access to all kinds of technology. Today’s parents are so naive that at the age of eight or ten they buy them mobile phones and computers even when the children barely know how to operate them on their own. Children at schools or universities would be using their mobile (mobile net) or laptop (internet) during ongoing lecturers. This would take their concentration away from their daily studies and lectures.
Concentration in classes is very essential for students. Lack of this would definitely ruin their education because if you don’t take down daily notes, you would not know where your syllabus stands. As David H. Jonassen says in his book, Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology: A Project of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Association for Educational Communications and Technology, (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), “On the negative side, participants reported the Internet created interference with the concentration in class."
They would not attend to their homework or revise their daily notes. 3“When asked about the potential long term effects of Internet use by young people in Kuwait,Alia observes:Most students join chat rooms after their day is over…,“I admit to wasting a lot of time on the internet when I could have been studying.” says Deborah L. Wheeler in The Internet in the Middle East: Global Expectations and Local Imaginations in Kuwait, (SUNY Press, 2005.)
Televisions can direct children in the wrong path of education
Television channels and movies invite a lot of the studying youth to get addicted in them as they are all curious and their interest too lies in them. This leads to corruption. They start to follow the “trends” of their idols who are normally the celebrities who are sometimes struggling with their own image building.
Not only this, sometimes the young children try to imitate what happened in the movies, may it be a fight scene or any other scene done with stunt men involved in the actual direction. This can be very dangerous as there were many incidents reportedly around the world, where children followed them and got injured or even killed. As Hilda. L. Jackman says, “Sometimes the stunts on television and in movies are dangerous when children try to do them. Violence may become too much..” (Early education curriculum: a child’s connection to the world, Delmar Publishers, 1997.)
E-Learning is beneficial…or not?
Electronic learning is now in use around the world. It lacks essential ingredients like the motivation of human contact in a classroom. The encouragement given by the normal teachers and the lecturers are absent here as well. Explanation face to face is a very important aspect in student learning, so when this cannot be obtained the students tend to lose interest in learning appropriately.
The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, (IAP 2004) states that “One of the major disadvantages of online learning has been found to be the lack of human interaction, lack of facial expression…”
Technology can also help children
However technology helps education in some ways as well such as multimedia presentations which makes the subject more interesting for people. It is easier for the teachers if they have to teach the same subject content to so many classes in different times as they will be able to do it very effectively and it is time consuming as well.
Also children can now find so much of educational information just by the click of a button and they don’t have to waste their time going through books at the libraries to gather them. They find it so much better and are motivated to do their homework as well due to searching for the relevant details is much easier in the present world.
Technology has negative impacts and also positive ones but the references in this article seem to suggest that, for now at least, the negative side has more credence than the other.
