Lower your risk of heart disease by eating chocolate. Chocolate causes migraine headaches.
Red wine causes breast cancer. Wine reduces risk of stroke, heart attack, cataracts.
Using an iPad or smartphone can harm a toddler’s learning and social skills. No, research does not say that ‘iPads and smartphones may damage toddlers’ brains’.
The instant access we have to information, research, and news reports can result in a dizzying amount of breaking news that contradicts itself from one day to the next. This onslaught of information becomes overwhelming as people find themselves either reacting to every new report or ignoring it as they become desensitized to the “urgency” created by each new headline. Neither is ideal, but how do we use research and evidence in ways that are managable and productive?
Technology use for children is an excellent example of the whiplash-like information that we, as teachers, are expected to evaluate to inform our instructional techniques. Is gaming a waste of time that robs children of opporunities to develop social connections? Or is a an engaging activity that gives children opportunities to develop a sense of mastery as the persist in increasingly difficult tasks?
I recently read two articles that, at first glance, seemed to contracdict each other. Despite the alarming and provokotative title, “Using an iPad or smartphone can harm a toddler’s learning and social skills”, this article used quotes from experts that were, to put it candidly, dull. Jenny Radesky a clinicial instuctor at Boston University Developmental-Behavior Pediatrics is quoted as saying that “the impact of these devices …on children is relatively unknown.” What?
The real conclusions drawn from the article might read a little more like this: Do not expect your child to develop social and empathetic skills by putting them in front of a mobile device for excessive amounts of time and not interacting with them yourself.
The second article, “No, research does not say that ‘iPads and smartphones may damage toddlers’ brains'”, came to similar conclusions as it criticized the sensationalized headlines that had been used in reporting this research. So what appeared to be, through their headlines, contradictory opinions, actually said many of the same things. Both used the technique of creating an intreging headline to catch their readers and neither left me feeling I had learned anything useful that I could apply to my teaching practice.
I’d love to hear how do you sort through research to find the gems that can effectively guide your instruction?