Next generation of children will be completely different. Why, you may ask? All of the answers lie within today’s children, and yesterday’s young adults. The way the next generation will interact, think, and even invent will all be based on whether or not parents allow extra screen time.

Technology since the last generation has changed massive amounts. Today’s adults grew up where being outdoors would beat any television or even early video games. This is because video games would not be portable until the 1990’s and there was no “real” smartphone until 2007. Even the children from the 1990’s wouldn’t play as much video games as children today because playing a sport was so much more inviting. Yet, the children of the present grew up playing video games. While in the past, video games were not made to appeal to children under 6, today there are hundreds of iPhone apps just to entertain toddlers. These apps can severely limit the child in its future.

Playing sports or playing with friends when we were children helped us in many ways. The fact that we needed to communicate with friends taught us how to interact. Our neighbors where the only people that we could play with, so the outdoors taught us how to build relationships. We were alone with only a sandbox, so built sandcastles and drew in the sand. That taught us imagination. The most important one was attention. Playing outside or even watching television didn’t take 100% of our attention as children, yet playing games takes full attention. This is because in video games children need to time finger movements correctly based on visuals and sounds. So a child would have to completely focus on the screen and the sound at the same time, along with timing the fingers correctly.

Video games of pre-1990 would not keep the child out of these experiences. This is because these video games were not portable. When the parent had to take the child somewhere with them, the child had to leave their video games behind and be imaginative to keep themselves entertained in the car, or in the waiting room. After 1990, children would get to play these games with them, but the parents would stop them from over playing them, and they had relatively short battery lives. Yet now, with iPhones and iPads, children can play for many hours straight with no problems.

Also, there are problems with having older siblings as well. These older siblings may have games that are only appropriate for older levels. These games can feature killing, swears, and bad references to alcohol and tobacco. Very rarely did a very violent game make it to popularity in the past, and the video game consoles of the past did not have the technology to show very detailed blood. Now with online communities as well, there are even more problems. Games like Call of Duty or Halo feature blood, shooting, and a voice-chat system. This system has teenagers and adults of all ages talking like they would in front of their friends, in front of 1st graders. This includes sexual jokes and references in front of these children.

The science behind the trouble of having children play too many video games and getting addicted lies within their brains. Children’s brains, until a surprising old age, are just still building a reasoning system. Children do not know the difference between right and wrong, so when they hear or see someone older saying swear words, they think it’s cool and want to do it too. Also, children of even younger ages still don’t have functioning interactions or imaginations, so playing video games your whole childhood can stifle those things horribly.

Then, there is the trust children get at a young age. In my personal experience, I have seen children who have owned their own cell phone or iPad. These children weren’t older either, they were in 1st grade. There are no problems with giving your child a safety, one that can only call them and 9-1-1, yet having that many connections to bad influences is not right.

The most major problem though is all in the parents. Parents these days are less strict to their children and almost never say “no”. The parents of today are too busy “Tweeting” the latest news about their baby or “Instagraming” a picture of the baby to realize that their children will take after them. These children will grow up and want to be like their parents, always involved in their iPhones or iPads instead of going outside and playing like a child should.

The children of today will always grow up to be like their parents. It is a fact that children take after their parents, so while a parent is “Facebooking” around their kid, this child will grow up with technology always by their side, and will never stare at a blank sandbox and create something extraordinary.