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Abstract
The current era is a technological era. In every field of life, technology is playing a key role. Even in education,
from school to universities everywhere technology is an essential element. Researchers are always focusing on the
benefits of technology and very few researches are conducted on its negative impact. This study is examining the
negative impact of technology on children. The recent question whether technology has a dark impact besides its
bright side or not is focused in this study. Should our younger ones use technology, this frequent with no limits is
also investigated. Questionnaire method is used to collect data to investigate the answer of these questions. Two
different questionnaires were designed for mothers and teachers. Questionnaires were distributed to schools and
results were analyzed using software. The results clearly indicate that there is a negative impact of technology on
the physical and mental health of children for the excessive use of gadgets. Although a fair use with precautionary
measure can improve the productivity of the children. At the end, researcher also provides few guidelines for
mothers and children on fair use technology.
1. Introduction
Technology is the present world; almost every individual is using technology nowadays. It’s certainly
affecting peoples’ daily lives because it’s playing a major role in facilitating our everyday life whether
we are talking about transportation, communication, security, banking, or healthcare; they all rely
on technology in one way or another. The argument on the technology concept is always crucial
for understanding because it is difficult to define the nature of technology. The old studies are very
clearly stating that it is very difficult to define technology (Reddy and Zhoa, 1990). To overcome
this difficulty technology is studied from different approaches. Many researchers even from different
disciplines, i.e., political science, marketing, organizational behavior and management are studying
international and local technological transfer (Cusumano and Elenkov, 1994; Zhao and Reisman,
1992).
Technology provides us with knowledge, experience, and entertainment; indeed a list of its
benefits would be very long. However, these advantages made people ignore its dark side and serious
impact on everybody, especially children.
This paper is describing about what is technology? And how it is effecting our children’ socially,
mentally, and physically. Author will also highlight the damage it’s causing to their health, social skills
and academic performances. Two questionnaires are used in this paper, one distributed to mothers
and other to their teachers to collect reliable data. An analysis is also provided to lead to the final
conclusion, which will decide whether technology should be allowed for children, or not.
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2. Literature Review
2.1. What is technology?
The researcher’s in the past has defined and viewed “technology” term in different perspectives, which
influenced the results and research design and also affected government policies in general (Reddy and
Zhoa, 1990).
According to Lane (2005), technology concerns itself with understanding how knowledge is
creatively applied to organized tasks involving people and machines that meet sustainable goals.
According to Kumar et al. (1999), technology is based on two important components: The first
one belongs to tools and equipment as physical components and second as informational components
such as marketing, management, skilled labor, reliability, and practical areas. The Sahal (1981) defines
technology as observing and configuration of technology based on a subjectively determined but
specifiable set of processes and products. Dunning (1994) said that the transfer of technology has linked
technology directly with knowledge and provide more consideration to the method of development and
research.
Technology also gives us various products, which can be used for good or ill or where the benefits
are disputed.
2.2. How children between the age of 3 and 16-year-old are exposed to technology
The technology was invented in the first place to facilitate life and make complicated procedures much
easier. For example, machines were made to save effort and time. But when speaking about children,
the case is different. Children use technology mainly for two purposes: Entertainment and knowledge.
The children of elementary school age use technology 8 h/day as an average and 65% of the children
have a personal television in their bedrooms and almost 50% North American houses whole day use
television (Rideout, 2003; Active Healthy Kids Canada, 2008).
Special programs and channels are created to entertain or teach children in different ways. It is
very clear that children are not attracted to physical games anymore; technology plays a huge role in
this. Instead of playing soccer with friends, decorating cupcakes, raising pets and playing with dolls,
you’ll find that children would hold an iPad, an iPod, an iPhone, a video game or a computer and sit in
one place for hours.
Many entertainment applications are creatively created especially for children to use and those
programs are really satisfying the little ones’ imagination to an extreme level. Moreover, internet
has become an essential matter to all ages including children. A child would go online to find his
favorite program, animation, game or movie clips, also a child in the age of 8 years and older would
communicate with family, friends and society through social network programs.
To some children technology in its many shapes has helped in improving skills, knowledge, and
imagination, to others it has caused addiction, changed habits, damaged personalities, relationships and
social lives or hurt physical health. However, the question is as follows: “Are we aware of the impact
of technology on our children?”
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
age ranging between 8 and 18 years discovered that average day kids devote around 4.5 h watching
television, 7.5 h using entertainment media, 1.5 h on a computer and over an hour playing video games.
Many researchers studied the effect of computer and other technology on the children and find out the
children’s are equally effected with CVS because of excess use of technology (Barar et al., 2007; Bali
et al., 2007; Izquierdo et al., 2004; Jacobs and Baker, 2002).
2.3.3. Obesity
As per the report of addressing childhood obesity by Canadian Institutes of Health. (2004), one of
each six kids is obese. There are three very important and critical factors for the psychological and
physical development of a kid, (1) Connection to other humans, (2) touch, and (3) movement. A study
concluded that when these three elements are deprived, shocking consequences happen (Montagu,
1972; Korkman, 2001; Ratey and Hagerman, 2008).
The more time people are spending engrossed in technology they are spending less time being
active or exercising. Furthermore, the likelihood of mindlessly eating unhealthy food increases, as
people are hypnotized while watching. According to the report of National Association for Sport and
Physical Education (2002), the young children require 3-4 h/day physical, rough and active play to
attain satisfactory sensory stimulation to their vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems for normal
development (Braswell and Rine, 2006). Hence, the physical movement of the kids is very important
for healthy development.
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
lack of empathy, lack of boundaries, lack of privacy, and warped sense of reality. “Television gives
children a distorted image of the world, as children have difficulty in discriminating reality from
fantasy on television” (Sprafkin et al., 1986).
Ozmert et al. (2002) in his study concluded that “As evaluated by the Child Behavior Checklist
(CBCL), television viewing time is positively associated with social problems, delinquent behavior,
aggressive behavior, externalization, and total problem scores. Older age, male gender, and decreasing
social subscale and increasing attention problem subscale scores on the CBCL increases the risk of
watching television for more than 2 h.” Social problems (Ozmert et al., 2002).
3. Research Methodology
Two surveys were created and distributed to women with different occupations, nationalities, and
ages. One page survey was given to 50 Saudi mothers of children from different genders between the
ages of 3 and 16 years, the questionnaire included questions about their children’s use of technology,
age, gender, personalities, health problems, and academic performances to know the impact of using
technology on the child’s habits, personality and health. Out of 50 participants, 32 mothers answered
the questions. As for the other survey, it was one page also and was distributed to 50 teachers to get
information about technology impact on students’ health, personalities, and performances in school.
Some general questions about the child gender and age were asked in the survey too. Out of 50, 48
questionnaires were collected.
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
Each mother has specified how many hours her child spends on technology per day, the answers
varied between 1, 2-3, 4-5 h and more (Figure 6).
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
a b
Figure 7: (a) Health problems (1 h), (b) health problems (2 h), (c) health problems (3 h), (d) health problems (4 h)
a b
c d
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
a b
Figure 9: (a) Females’ personality, (b) male’s personality, (c) females’ academic performances, (d) male’s academic
performances
a b
c d
are interested in styling dolls, raising pets, cooking and these games are all available in electronic
applications with more facilities and options which justify the long time they spend on technology.
Despite that, charts showed that males’ personality and academic performances were more
affected than females (Figure 9a-d). While their health was equally affected (Figure 10a and b). That
can be explained; when males play video games, or watch TV or engage in any technological activities
they tend to give their 100% attention, full focus and become isolated from reality, which make them
easily affected, and more exposed to personal damage, which make them less social, more hyper and
active, in some cases quite, and distracted all the time. And since females spend more time it’s more
likely for them to suffer from health problems.
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
a b
Figure 11: (a) Children 3-5 (time at house), (b) children 6-8 (time at house), (c) children 3-5 (time at house),
(d) children 6-8 (time at house)
a b
c d
Figure 12: (a) Children 3-5 (personality), (b) children 6-8 (personality), (c) children 9-12 (personality), (d) children
13-16 (personality)
a b
c d
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
children, and finally, the least affected group is the 6-8 years old children. As discussed earlier, the
group of 13-16 years old children use technology the most of all groups then the younger groups and
that can explain their academic performance. Although, it does not explain why 3-5 years old children
are the second to be impacted. It’s known that 3-5 years old children does not have serious studies or
exams but the fact that teachers have noticed 41% of the students is below average this means that
there’s a serious impact on their performances which could not be ignored. The only explanation to this
is their young age, they are more influenced and affected by external factors than any group, and cannot
control their abilities or emotions, which interpret the results (Figure 13a-d).
Figure 13: (a) Children 3-5 (academic performances), (b) children 6-8 (academic performances), (c) children 9-12
(academic performances), (d) children 13-16 (academic performances)
a b
c d
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
Figure 16: (a) Females’ personalities in school, (b) males’ personalities in school, (c) females’ behavior in class,
(d) females’ behavior in class, (e) females’ academic performances, (f) females’ academic performances
a b c
d e f
a b
Except in health, according to health charts females had more health issues, which is expected
(Figure 17a and b).
Around 91% of them were 3-5 years old children and the rest were at the age of 6-8 years old,
which shows that kids at these young ages cannot control their addiction or usage of technology while
older ones can and know their limits (Figure 18).
These children were clearly affected by their addiction to technology; it’s showing in their
personalities, performances in class, and academic performances charts, what you can notice is that
the group of 6-8 years old children are more impacted than the younger ones, as it’s proved earlier that
the older the child gets the more frequent he or she uses technology and the more impacted he or she
becomes (Figure 19a-f).
Finally, all women (both mothers and teachers) were asked if technology has an impact on children
or not to see how aware they were of the negative impact and the dark side of technology, 45% of them
though that technology has no significant impact or can cause no harm to children, on the other hand,
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
Figure 19: (a) Tech children 3-5 (behavior in class), (b) tech children 6-8 (behavior in class), (c) tech children 3-5
(personalities), (d) tech children 6-8 (personalities), (e) tech children 3-5 (academic performances), (f) tech children
6-8 (academic performances)
a b c
d e f
21% has answered that technology also is harmless but has a good impact on children’s imagination,
knowledge, and entertainment. Only 34% were aware of the dark side of technology and believed that
technology causes serious and negative impact to children’s health, personalities, attitudes, academic
performances, and social communications (Figure 20).
5. Conclusion
There’s no doubt that technology has many advantages and is a key to a bright future but we should be
careful when it comes to our children. Many studies have proved that technology has a dark side besides
its great beneficial side, and this paper specifically is an indication of how dangerous technology can
be to children, the more frequent the child uses technology the more negatively impacted his health,
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Australasian Journal of Business, Social Science and Information Technology (AJBSSIT)
personality, and academic performances get. Technology can slowly damage our new generation
physically, mentally and socially; that’s why it’s important to be aware of these negative impacts of
technology and take them seriously. Parents should take control of how much time their children spend
on its different forms to maintain balance between technology’s advantages and disadvantages.
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