Nursery World - Learning & Development: ICT

We should take the precautionary principle in exposing young children to ICT before we know the long-term effects, argues Dr Richard House.

In 'Computers benefit children' (Nursery World, 7 October), Professor John Siraj-Blatchford made the case for promoting ICT in early childhood and criticised the anti-ICT arguments of author Aric Sigman, arguing that he failed to differentiate between computer hardware and software and was prone to unscientific 'selective citation'.

Professor Siraj-Blatchford's views, however, don't appear to be shared by the peer-reviewed scientific journals that regularly publish Dr Sigman's papers. He ignores the concerns of many distinguished technology critics, including many of humankind's greatest philosophers - Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Jorgen Habermas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and so on.

Writing recently on ICT, neuroscientist Professor Susan Greenfield highlighted 'the potential loss of imagination, the inability to maintain a long attention span, the tendency to confuse fact with knowledge, and a homogenisation of an entire generation of minds ... These risks could even actually change the physical workings of the brain.' Grave concerns indeed.

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