Is it good for children to start using computers from an early age and spend long hours on them? Discuss the advantages and disadvantages.

As an introduction, in recent years,

children

, like adults, have become increasingly exposed to

computers

.

While

some child psychologists have claimed that

this

is a good thing, others have claimed that it has an overwhelmingly detrimental impact on

children

. In

this

essay, I shall draw upon a number of studies in cognitive science and industrial psychology that reveal the positive and negative aspects of

this

phenomenon.

To begin

with, there are clear reasons why

computers

do not allow

children

to develop long attention spans.

This

is because

computers

are packed with many supposedly child-friendly games that require minimal levels of concentration in order to be enjoyed.

For example

, a study by the New York Child Learning Association found that

children

who read from picture books were 50% less likely to get distracted than

children

who played educational computer games.

Therefore

computers

almost certainly have a negative impact on young

children

.

However

, since the world has become heavily reliant on

computers

, there are

also

clear advantages to exposing

children

to

computers

.

This

is because

children

with

such

exposure will stand a better chance of finding employment.

For example

, after being interviewed by Yale psychologists, over 70% of young office workers admitted that they had spent long hours on

computers

in their middle and late childhood years.

Therefore

it is clear that

computer exposure can be beneficial to

children

. In conclusion, there are advantages and disadvantages to early computer exposure.

However

, if, in the future, the quality of educational gaming is increased, there is good reason to believe that these negative consequences will fall entirely away.