According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 75% of children have their own mobile device by the age of four.

As technology continues to grow, each generation is more dependent on smart devices. Parents are promoting this dependency by allowing kids to have the technology at a young age, depriving them of a worthy childhood and contributing to a perpetual addiction.

According to the research film Influential Center, “On average, children are getting their first smartphones around age 10.” Ten is an age to climb on trees, play hide and seek and scrape both knees while riding bicycles. To present kids, phones are the new bicycles and technology is the new outside. They are blinded by an addiction, prone to develop. Giving a phone to a child is just as dangerous as giving them a gram of an addictive drug. The addiction creates a higher risk for kids to expose themselves to bullies, predators or online catfishes.

Technology affects emotional and social skills in kids by the excess use of it. TCS students are affected regarding their ability to learn and are not spending enough time with their family and friends. Giving a phone to a young kid interferes with their sleeping quality, their ability to form healthy relationships, healthy bodies and encourages social anxiety, making them more aggressive. According to pediatric nurse Denise Daniels, “Between the ages of 0 and 2 years, an infant’s brain triples in size. A parent’s voice, touch, and eventually play can help build pathways in their brain that aid them in learning how to bond emotionally with other people.” The child/parent relationship is involved, given that two-year-olds have tablets or another kind of device.

Some argue, that smartphones bring aids to children such as academic tools and apps to communicate. However, when kids need phones and when they are ready for them is different. On average, sexting begins in fifth grade, an issue widely known by the TCS students. Pornography addiction begins at eleven years old. Lack of parental control, contaminates an innocent era, turning it into a toxic addiction. It’s difficult to set an age for parents to give kids their phones but it’s crucial for them to talk about a responsible use. It’s also necessary to set preventions beforehand to enforce limits that keep them from online dangers.

Kids use technological devices at a young age, negatively contributing to their social and emotional aspects. The question arises; why it matters. We live in a constant developing society and every minute there’s an exponential technological advancement. In twenty years, technology will be a million times more advanced than it’s today and most of the present teen generation will have children. It’s important to learn about this because if the problem grows to an exponential amount, the consequences will also grow to that same amount. As future parent’s, precautions will be needed to exempt our kids from a long-lasting addiction. Also, prevent future generations from being robotized and absorbed by such a simple concept; technology.