Impact of IPads on Children - Research Paper Example

Impact of IPads on Children To justify that children should not have iPads, I conducted a survey in which I interviewed students from ZU and random parents, most preferably the mothers. I chose interviewing mothers because they are the ones who best know their children more than their fathers. From this survey, I got 81 responses from them with every person giving a response according to their opinion and how they observed the impact the gadget had on their children. for the second group which I picked 5 mothers from ZU and asked them 5 questions each and they also gave responses with regards to their opinion, I called this group Focused Group. From the first group of 81 individuals, I also asked five main questions that were the guidance to determine whether children should possess iPad or not. The first question was to enquire how many had given their children an iPad to own and 52 responses were positive whereas 29 did not give their children the gadget. This alone showed that in many households, children possessed iPad given by their parents. The second question focused on the impact the iPad brought to the children whether positive or negative impact. Out of the 81 responses, 43 of them agreed that iPad had a negative impact on children whereas 38 agreed that it had a positive impact on their children. All these responses had different reason as to why it brought a negative or positive impact depending on the behavioral change of their children. The third question was to enquire on how long the kids spent using their iPad in a day. Out of the 81, 18 of them said one hour, 15 responses said 1 to 3 hours, 29 responses said 3 to 5 hours, and 19 responses said their kids spend over 5 hours using an iPad. From this analysis question, it shows only few children spend little time on the gadget and many of them spend many hours with an iPad. This is wrong because too much time on the gadget is not good for the health of a person more so children. The next question was to find out if the children could stay for one month without the gadget. From the response, only 34 could ban an iPad from their children for one month while 47 cannot manage to take the gadget from their kids. These responses proved that most children have become addicts and have made themselves be slaves to the gadget. This addiction comes about due to the many hours they spend using the iPad until they get fond of the device such that they cannot do without it. The last question was to confirm the kind of activities these children did on their iPad to confirm if it is an advantageous activity or something of no importance. The five activities of enquiry included doing homework which had 11 responses, reading had no response, for entertainment use had 34 responses, drawing, photos and music had 5 responses, communicating and collaborating had 13 responses, and an extra slot for those who had no idea what their children did on the iPad had 18 responses. From these responses, it shows that the positive activities that would be of help to the children are the least done with the iPad for instance reading. A good number of responses did not have an idea of what their children did with the iPad. This is most dangerous because the children could engage in illegal and bad moral activities like pornography and other explicit stuff. On the focused group, I interviewed five mothers from ZU whom I asked five similar questions and everyone answered according to their experience. The mothers are named A, B, C, D, and E. The first question was to enquire the reason why their children possessed an iPad and mothers A to D said they bought iPad for their children because everyone had one so they were just flowing with the trend. The fifth mother, E, said she gave her child an iPad she used to have so she thought her kid having it would be better. This shows how most parents do something just because it is the trend without minding the repercussions and its long-term effects. The second question was on the benefits the iPad has on their young children and mother E said it helps her child access the internet easily. Mothers A and D said the iPad has educational applications that their children access for their academic gains. Mothers B and C said that there is no benefit they see in iPad that will be of much help to the kids. Young children for internet access are not advisable because they can view some adult content. For the parents who gave their children iPad for no reason is not right because they do not know what the children use it for and this could be misleading. The third question enquired if there is any positive change to the children who use iPad in terms of their learning experience. Mother A said it has helped her kid because he or she can read faster to show the educational applications are of benefit to the child. However, this is not a reason enough for a child to have an iPad since there are other educational alternatives like books. Mother C said it has helped her kid because he or she is able to sing, dance, and learnt some new English words. Mothers A, B, and D said their kids using an iPad have not changed anything in their learning experience. This shows that most kids with iPad do not use it for educational purposes and despite having all the educational advantage, the iPad does not still help. A good instance is mother D whose kid has educational applications but still his or her learning experience has not changed. The forth question was to enquire if the children have already become addicts to their iPads and what proves they are addicted to the gadget. Mother B said she thinks her kid is addicted to the device because she cannot take it from her. Mother C also said hers is addicted because he spends using the gadget for more than five hours in a day. Mothers A, D, and E said their kids are not addicted because they control the usage and the kids know what time is appropriate to use and for how long. The last question was asking if the mothers are satisfied with their children’s usage of iPads. Mother A said she is satisfied because the iPad distracts the kids and keeps them occupied with something to do rather than being idle or disturbing. Mother C said she also feels satisfied because her kid has learnt a lot from the iPad considering the things the kid can do ever since he or she started using the device. Parents B, D, and E said they are not satisfied because they could not see any much impact the iPad has brought to their children. From this analysis, I generated a percentage chart of the general questions asked in accordance to the percentage mark of every response I got from the people I asked. . From the data collected, it shows that most children have iPad in most households out there and most guardians do not know the real thing their kids do with the iPads. Despite the few benefits, the gadget has to the kids in their learning and educational experiences it has no much benefits compared to its long term effects. IPad makes a child committed to it so much thus making the kid isolated hence developing antisocial behaviors. In addition, kids with iPads have access to explicit sites and applications need parental guidance so if they go unsupervised on what they access it will end up ruining their morals. During my study, I encountered some drawbacks that can be an issue to a research of this kind. The major drawback is that I surveyed a limited number of 81 people and this was not a representative survey. Due to this, it is hard to determine other people’s opinion because everyone in a population has his or her own opinion. The other issue is that I interviewed these people only once in December 2014, so there is a high possibility that the opinion they all gave could change over the years. The best solution is to conduct more study over a big range of people in order to determine a definitive answer to every question. Read More