Band-posters, Blockbuster VHS tapes, road hockey, and playgrounds – all part of a time that was my childhood and a time that seemed simpler, more hands-on. Then everything sped up. Technology made everything faster, but not for the better.
Children used to play in sandboxes, climb their school playground monkey bars, hockey nets filled neighbourhood streets as players yelled "car" when motorists interrupted their games.
Now it feels as though those hands grasp cell phones, not sticks and playground monkey bars. Children grow up led by technology, not playing outside with their friends, but "talking" by texting on their devices.
I remember when I was younger, how excited I would get about the Scholastic book fair. I would be anxious to dive into books by Robert Munsch, Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle. My friends and I would be looking at picture books and talking, or playing games like Heads Up, Seven Up or Wax Museum.
Now it seems like enthusiasm for games, books, and engagement with friends is being eroded by a growing reliance and even obsession with screens.
A 2022 Canadian Paediatric Society study on children and screen time described what that looks like from early infancy.
“Nearly all children in Canada are exposed to screens by the age of two, and only 15 per cent of Canadian children ages 3-4 meet screen time requirements of one hour per day," the study said.
The CPS also said that before the Coronavirus 2019, parents reported their children to have an average daily screen time of 1.9 hours per day.
“As an early marker of developmental risk, language delay in preschoolers is a closely studied correlation of screen time. Research examining TV exposure, whether on a big screen or tablet, has consistently correlated greater amounts of early screen exposure with delayed acquisition of language and lower vocabulary and grammar scores,” the study showed.
I have had a difficult time wrapping my head around the takeover screens have had on our youth, and now this has been further complicated by the furious pace of AI.
Just short of its third launch anniversary, ChatGPT has become a fast and easy tool for research.
ChatGPT provides access to answers, ideas, research, and relevant contact information via the web and content summarization as a whole. It is designed to direct users’ questions and prompt responses that seem personalized, organized, and well thought-out.
However, ChatGPT takes the hard work of critical thought away from us.
I find this quite scary. It can easily hurt one’s cognitive function and adaptation to reality.
ChatGPT could encourage the wrong idea, especially for children. Young children who have been playing with screens from babyhood will enter the school system knowing how to use AI, how to use ChatGPT for schoolwork and how to find anything about anything, even topics that may be harmful to young minds.
When high school or college rolls around, they are going to continue these same unhealthy patterns and then enter the workforce. Who knows what technological advances will be battering our world then?
A study done by KPMG this past month found that, on average, 73 per cent of Canadian students have gradually become reliant on the use of AI.
But AI is a form of plagiarism. Students can face harsh repercussions if they use AI for assignments. The reliance on AI can hurt their future job prospects. Who will hire someone who cannot think for themselves but needs to tap into their phone to find the answers?
The pandemic changed the workplace. No longer going to work in an office setting, people were working from home. This became the norm after the pandemic receded. And the influence of AI further affected the workplace as companies started training employees on ChatGPT as another way to streamline working remotely, and to cut hours.
Our over-reliance on devices and AI-generated platforms is mistaking advancement for improvement, and the result is that we are destroying our abilities to think creatively and independently, to problem solve and to exchange ideas.
We need to take a break, put down the phones, close the laptops and open a book, go outside and play and talk to another. Depend on ourselves, not the tech.
