The usage of the internet under the age of thirteen years has increased in the recent years according to a report about internet’s impacts on kids. Around 30 million kids daily use the internet and especially its use in education has become a necessary part of schools, libraries, and homes. This is a shocking data, so in this article, we gonna talk about the negative effects of technology on children's social skills and how we can help them avoid these negative aspect!
Table of Contents
Part 1. Technology Era -- Today and Tomorrow
The technology has evolved with the passage of time and specific technology that has grown rapidly is information and communication technology (ICT). It has a great impact on everything which we see around us today. Now, we don't need to wait for days to receive letters from our loved ones around the globe. Technology has made it very faster that we can connect with our family, friends, and colleagues at any moment and anytime. In the beginning, thecomputer was enormous in size and their performance was too much lower if we compare them with the modern, compact, latest computers.
Internet is one of the modern technology that has grown tremendously. According to internetworldstats.com in 1995 there were only 16 million users but till the end of 2021, there are around 5,053 million internet users globally. That's remarkable growth. It has an impact on every aspect of life, whether it's social, educational, or political.
Part 2: Children and Technology: Benefits and Negative
2.1 The Benefits It Take
It's 2021 and kids know very well how to make use of the internet on smartphones and computers. They play video games, watch videos, and do other education-related activities. The rapidly growing technology has made kids smarter than they were ever before. Children are curious when they see new things and this makes them learn things quickly.
It's the most affected aspect that has internet did on humans and it includes all humans including kids, men and women's, now we are independent to learn whatever we want to. Even, you can almost learn anything without going to high school or university just by using e-learning's internet resources. There's almost everything available that you need to be a self-sufficient learner.
The Internet has made children smarter and intelligent. There are many educational games and videos that let your kid develop interests into problem-solving skills and critical thinking. These games contain levels that encourage kids to go as far as they can by solving problems such as mathematical or analytical tasks that require critical thinking. This increases children's problem-solving skills.
Machine learning, Data Science, and Artificial intelligence are taking most of the controls in the production industry and they are replacing humans as humans can make mistakes and are slower. Now, machines can take decisions according to the data they analyze from past events and they can predict how many units of products would be needed, etc. But there are some negative effects of technology on social skills which we are going to describe in the next section.
2.2 The Negative Aspects
The Internet has dramatically changed human lives, we are now having a lot of facilities that one can't think about without the internet and computing technology. Despite, all the positive aspects and facilities there is evidence for the negative impacts of technology and its misuse, as well. The excessive and misuse of the internet may cause significant negative impacts on growing children and youngsters. We will look at some of them to understand how technology affects children's social skills.
Smartphones have now become a necessary gadget for youth and you would find them immersed in their smartphone devices, totally oblivious to the world around them. Most of the communication in this era of technology been done using a keyboard or a touchscreen, even children don't understand the basic conversation ethics. Social skills can't be learned being socialized in society. This is how technology leads to diminishing relationships and social skills.
According to a survey conducted 54% of teens of the U.S have confirmed that they spent too much time on smartphones and this survey was conducted to know the impact of screen time on teenagers especially between the ages of 13to 17 spending an excessive amount of time on smartphones can lead to disturbance in educational activities.
Mild use of everything is normal but when it comes to extreme use it cause problems. The same happens with technology. It can affect the children's health as including eyestrain, sleeping disorders, reducing physical activities, and poor posture. People who have negative social circles on the internet found victims of depression and anxiety, according to research by PubMed Central.
Sleep plays an important part in the health of a human. Especially, children can get irritation in their behavior if they don't get proper and deep sleep. The use of smartphones at the night can cause really swear problems in sleep. Less sleep causes many health problems such as mental disturbance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity.
Part 3: How Adult Can Help Kids Avoid the adverse effects of the network?
Children are not practical and they don't know what's good or bad for them. They get involved in anything which looks attractive to them. But being parents its the responsibility of their adults to monitor their phones to understand how does technology affects a child’s social development and what are the negative effects of technology on social skills. Let’s learn about monitoring apps to keep an eye on your loved ones.
3.1 The best Way -- Use KidsGuard to Monitor Kids Phone
Why you should use a monitoring app and how it can help us to monitor our kids? Well, there are much reasons and of them is to make sure that children aren't getting involved into anything that's harmful to their mental and physical health. You can monitor which apps they are using and how much time they use their smartphones.
KidsGuard Pro for Android is an efficient tool that definitely helps you to monitor your kids. It has amazing features that enable you to monitor their android smartphone from anywhere at any time.
What can I Monitor through Kidsguard?
The tracking kid's location feature is very useful and you can make use of it to track the exact location of your kids and loved ones when they are away from home. How it can help us monitor your kids? Well, it has a geo-fencing feature that uses the built-in GPS tracker to alert you, when your kids exist or enter the virtual boundary settled by you. It has a Wi-Fi location tracking feature as well.
Easily access all the files stored on your kid's or loved one's device without them knowing. These features show you all the files like Messages, Call Logs, Contacts, Video Thumbnails, Browser History, etc. You have the option to save them locally on your own device as well if you want them for further use.
KidsGuard monitoring app for kids has a feature with the help you can recover all the calls including incoming and outgoing on the target device. You can hear and recover both the receiver and caller. If you get any suspicious behavior in your children, while talking on the phone you can use this feature. This feature also helps us to monitor our kids.
Why KidsGuard Pro for Android is the Best Kids Cell Phone Tracker?
KidsGuard Pro for Android has many features that make it stand out as the best kids cell phone tracker among other phone tracking Softwares.
All the data from the target device to your device will be synced in real-time and there will be no delay as much as there's a working internet connection whether it's a 3G/4G network or Wi-Fi.
The installation process of this monitoring app for kids is very easier and it only takes three steps to completely install this tool and you can start monitoring your kids really quick. You don't even need to have the technical knowledge to successfully complete the installation.
This monitoring software works anonymously on your children's phone and they won't even notice that they are being monitored by someone. Once the installation process is complete, the app will hide and it won't appear again on the display of the target device.
KidsGuard Pro for Android pricing and plans are very competitive. If you compare the price with features, you will get to know that the price is very competitive. It has 3 plans for the essence of users to buy a suitable plan which one suits to their requirements. You can get your money back within 30 days if you are not satisfied with the product.
3.2 Other Ways to Control the Usage of Smartphone for Your Kids
There are other free ways to monitor your child's phone but they are not much efficient as the KidsGuard monitoring app is. You can use these methods to prevent the negative effects of technology on the social skills of your kid. Let's have a look at some of them.
You can restrict the schedule of phone playing time for your children. Google has introduced its own app known as "Digital Wellbeing" that allows users to set a timer for how many hours some specific apps can be used, bedtime mode that reminds you to switch off the phone, and focus mode that lets your pause distracting apps. There are many other apps available like that and you can use any of them which one you like.
Keep in mind that children always follow their parents. They try to practice what their parents are doing all day. Set your phone away when you are free and spent time with your kids each day. While being with your child if you get any notification or text message, don't rush toward the phone, wait till you have done your interaction or conversation with your children. If you want your kids to be a victim of negative effects of technology on the social skill, then try to be a role model. Try not to bring your laptop, smartphones, or tablets to the bedroom at night.
Most of the kids in the upcoming generation are not interested in playing outdoor games and they are addicted to sedentary activities like watching movies, TV serials, playing iPad games, and surfing social media. According toresearch kids who don't spend much time in green space were 55% more victims of depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric problems. Whenever you are free take your kids to the park next to your home, or take them away in a garden. Try to engaged them with physical activities so they can build interest in outdoor activities.
Final Words
The negative effects of technology on children's social skills can be caused by the extreme usage of smartphones. After reading this article, you have now a better understanding of how technology affects children's social skills and how you can monitor your kid's smartphones.