"The real-life values in the lives we structure for our children will determine the kind of world they, and we, inhabit in the future.  Will it be a world dedicated to people or to machines?  Will there be space for solitude?  For wisdom?  For dreams?  Will it be one we want to live in?”

Jane M. Healy the author of Failure to Connect is an educational psychologist and educator for more than 35 years with experience as a classroom teacher and university professor.  Healy is a long time user of technology and is technically adept.  Concerns about the incorrect use of computers by children and their lasting effects drove Healy to spend 2 years examining the advantages and drawbacks of computer use for kids at home and school, exploring its effects on children's health, creativity, brain development, and social and emotional growth.   Healy breaks her book into three sections, Digital Dreams Meet Reality, Digital Childhood, and Doing It Right When The Time Is Right.

 

As Healy ventures into the classrooms she is overwhelmed by the amount of teachers and parents aboard the "computer in every classroom" bandwagon.  Their persistent desire has convinced the government and school administrations to sink millions of dollars into outfitting schools with computers.  Yet Healy shows there is scant evidence that computers teach basic skills any better than traditional methods, or that children who don't have computers are somehow "left behind." Conversely, there is abundant evidence that an infatuation with computers as an educational cure-all is replacing skill building and learning with formless play while forcing art and music lessons, and in some cases textbooks, off many school budgets.  Not every school was caught in the trap Healy notes as she finds rare schools that have incorporated technology and education correctly.  At these locations she finds that the teachers have either been trained or are technically adept.  This brought out yet another black eye in the bandwagon, that being, that while schools are sinking all their money into purchasing equipment they are leaving no money to train the teachers who will be implementing the use of these computers into the classroom.

 

Healy moves from the classroom into the home next to examine how parents are allowing their children to use computers.  Here she is once again overwhelmed and worried with her findings.  She notes that most parents encourage their children to use computers extensively and children soon become addicted.  The negative effects of this are scary.  Health problems might be the scariest reality.  Visual, skeletal and brain development problems have all been proven to exist from overuse of computers.  While many parents limited the watching of television by their children because they worried about their creativity and socialization, there was little if any limitations of computer use.  Parents defended themselves by arguing that their children were mostly using educational programs so they were learning and expanding their minds.  Healy acknowledges the heavy use of educational programs but condemns most of them.  Healy claims and shows that most educational products do not actually educate or spawn creativity in children but instead are mind numbing video games.  She blames the creators of such software for taking advantage of ignorant parents and pawning off video games as educational so that their software will move off the shelves.  Another negative effect of computer overuse at young ages is the lack of social adeptness and comfort exhibited by most children spending too much time on computers.  Healy rationalized that while other children at young ages are interacting with others and learning social skills, heavy computer users are isolated to a humming tower and a florescent screen.  An old saying that came to mind through this section was "It is easier to build a child than repair an adult."  Children develop in leaps and bounds at young ages; it is dangerous to allow them to be in front of a computer stunting their emotional and physical development.

 

Lastly Healy returns to her "pen & pad" to compose the last section of her book detailing how children should use computers and at what ages they should be given more freedom.  Healy’s revelations and insight come from the combination of her psychological and educational experience with her results from months of studying children in the classroom and at home.  Healy claims that before the age of seven it is important for children to develop several learning skills such as social and sensory learning and that computers should rarely be used because as of now can't really help children develop.  She points out that “the physical world not the two dimensional world is where we learn the building blocks for more advanced thinking.”  After the age of seven Healy encourages some computer use, but not extensive.  She encourages computer use when it sparks creativity yet cautions not to let technology replace development processes but accompany them.  As children approach the age of 12 and above, Healy notes that computer use can be good to help kids develop abstract reasoning. Guided computer use and supervised internet access can allow children to access and explore worlds they never could have before computer use.  Healy once again warns that supervision by a technologically trained parent/teacher is of paramount importance.  She cautions parents about such things as internet addiction.  Healy finishes the book examining how the internet is negatively and positively affecting research at the college level.

 

While this subject may not seem relevant to many college students who likely do not have children this book struck me as powerful, knowledgeable, and insightful.  With three younger siblings I related much of the book to them.  Healy changed my views about children using computers.  As many of us are heading out into the real world and probably starting families I encourage all to read this book.  As computer scientist it is going to be our natural desire for us to want our children to get on a computer as soon as possible and this can be quite dangerous if done the wrong way or at the wrong age.  I encourage us all to beware of the power that computers hold because if used incorrectly can be damaging.