There has been lots of debate online about technology, our children and Steve Jobs, the late, great tech guru and founder of Apple. Specifically, he did not allow his kids to use iPads at a young age.  

  

 We all ask what is the reason? Why did the founder of Apple feel it necessary to keep his children sheltered from his own tech creation… There must be a reason.  Or is this just another way for today’s media to sell an article.

We refer to an article published in The Guardian, Screen time v play time: what tech leaders won’t let their own kids do.

When a technology journalist suggested to Steve Jobs, in 2010, that his children must have loved the just-released iPad, he replied flatly: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” His former righthand man, Jonathan Ive, whose design for the iPad is so simple that toddlers can operate it, recently revealed that he sets strict limits for his 10-year-old twin boys.

Steiner Waldorf schools, which exclude screen time before the age of 12 in favour of physical activity, art and experiential learning, are particularly popular with Silicon Valley executives and their UK counterparts. Kevin Avison, executive officer of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship in the UK, says that when he was teaching near Reading, “nearly 50% of parents of children in the class worked at Oracle or other hi-tech computer companies”.

Technology is important I agree with many on this, just look at what happens every minute on the internet below.

With many wanting to get ahead, children with all the new gaming software spend hours on all the latest and greatest. 

However the usage, time spent with children these days I believe needs to be limited. We should learn from these creators, designers of technology who don’t encourage playing. Indeed, they actively ban it. 

This begs the question: is technology helping our children grow and develop? Is it allowing them to build all the foundation communication skills, the social, gross and fine motor skills that are so important?

Articles and research showing the pros and cons of both sides in technology.  As children, let’s remember, we were outside from dawn to dusk, weather permitting, developing life skills.

In most schools today, the curriculum encourages the use of the tablets, iPads, computers and technology in general. With Microsoft developing software and games for schools it is definitely a hot topic with varying views on the effects.

The concerns that I have with technology is that we still build the foundation skills for children by allowing them to be creative, innovative with construction, drawing, playing an actual musical instrument not just one on a game. That’s surely the way to build the social, communication, personal growth and resilience skills necessary to become a leader in our world. 

If the founders of technology encouraged more physical learning off line why are we so keen to make sure our children are always connected to technology?