Our children's new addiction

My 7-year-old daughter is addicted to screens.

There, I’ve admitted it.

My wife, daughter and I recently spent the weekend at my in-laws’ house. My daughter spent the vast majority of the time either playing on a Kindle or an iPad. At 11 a.m. on our second day there, I said to her, “It’s time to brush your teeth.”  She whined, “Why?” and “I don’t want to.” She didn’t want to break away from the screen, even for two minutes.

My daughter is an only child, so on one level I understand her desire to play with something. On the other hand, I’m concerned and sometimes appalled that she is not reading more.

At our home, my daughter does not have access to an iPad or Kindle. I don’t want them in the house. 

During the week I have her do her homework after dinner. Then, if she wants to go on the computer, I tell her she can go on the PBS website, or another educational website, such as Cool Math Games for Kids or Starfall.

But her mother owns an iPhone.  When my wife comes home from work, my daughter wants to play with the iPhone. 

When my daughter is on the IPhone, I sometimes try to say hello to her.  She generally does not respond.  Her eyes have been sucked into the screen and her mind is not actually in our living room. It’s possible that she is actually wandering around in the fourth dimension. 

My daughter isn’t the only one who is obsessed with screen.  I have seen kids all over the Bronx with digital devices. They look hypnotized by whatever they see.

During pick-up time at my daughter’s summer camp I saw kids of all ages huddled around a counselor’s iPhone, playing games. 

My daughter can read well. My wife and I have spent hundreds of hours reading to her and having her read to us.

Now, though, I’m afraid she won’t advance as much as she could, because she’s spending much of her time in front of screens instead of books.

To me, books are intrinsically more valuable to a child’s future than all these screens. Books give the reader new worlds, the sense of possibilities beyond your own little house, street or neighborhood. They help you see what’s out there, give you a view of your environment. They help you become a citizen of the world.

So, yes, I fear for my daughter, along with the countless other children who are looking and clicking on a game screen instead of learning how to handle the complex and potentially dangerous world we live in.

We need our children to read more. 

As adults, they will be faced with an increasingly competitive and vicious business world and more importantly, a world possibly disrupted by climate change. They are going to have to be smarter than their parents. And, without the reading they need to be doing, I wonder if they will be able to adapt to the enormous challenges they will have to confront, but don’t yet see.

Mike Gold lives and works in the Bronx.