Recently I visited primary school kids in my village# primary
 school.It was a pleasant experience.Children did not have
# smart  phones.Â
In my city school I have met more children under the age of five
than  I can count, when I spoke to  them or ask them
a question, they reply without making # eye contact
I read years ago that one of the major problems  with
#phones is that parents no longer make eye contact with their
children. This is a big problem because learning# language,
connecting with others, and attention# spans are all super
 influenced by eye contact which is missing because of use
 of smart phones.
My sister is a teacher of third grade kids and she  said noneÂ
of them make eye contact with her. Furthermore, after
 spending a whole year with their classmates,she noticed
 her class kids don’t know more than half of  the names of
their# classmates. That didn’t happen in our school days,
 We knew every kid of our class.
To correct this unpleasant situation, my sister now makes her
 third graders say hello to each other, every single studentÂ
in the class, by name every morning  while making eye contact.
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I’ve also noticed in cities hardly any  kid play outside.   WhenÂ
we were small  my #neighborhoods were filled with kids  outside.
We used to ride bikes or play  sports . Now to my  surprise
 all outside places of playing are  empty everywhere .All these
# odd happening have strong reasons  and my submission
why it is so is following.
1.I know a lot of parents of little kids use # iPads as a # babysitter.
I see how # tempting it is, it keeps children
quiet at dinner or when they’re# bugging their parents.
 But, I think it’s not a right approach to do so.It is going
to have some #detrimental effects on creativity or social
 interaction skills of small kids.
2.Another observation which made me think deeply is when
kids  come  to # middle and high school, I noticed they’re all
#glued to  their phones. They take #social media with them
everywhere.  It’s like they never leave school talking to
friends #online.
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3. First of all, that’s super distracting. I myself wouldn’tÂ
have focused as  well in school  if I had a smart phone at
that time. Second, phone indue s# anxiety.
High school was enough  hard for me, I distinctly rememberÂ
when I used to go home, home at  night I was a #uncool kid.
I can’t imagine having my whole  life on display in #smart phone
when my little # brain was  still developing and I had so much
 anxiety.
My observations written in this article might sound
 like I’m a very old woman who hates on technology.But friendsÂ
these are my observations.Its high time we should think #positive for
about our next generation while using smart phone technologyÂ
for  teaching.Â
 Moral of story-I just feel that the current #generation is
a # science experiment  as being the # first generations raised
 by technology, and  I think we’re starting to see the
effects of it.Let us be #responsible citizen/parents and use
 technology  for making positive impact on next generation.
Sukarma Thareja
Alumnus IITK
India
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