Technology babysitting

Watching kids interact with technology fascinates me, but worries me too

At a breakfast meeting this week the conversation turned to the role technology is playing in children's lives.

One of the execs I was meeting had young children, and said what a lifesaver tablets can be when it comes to keeping the children quiet or amused, and also how from the age of 12 months, most children know how to swipe a screen and mess around with a smart device.

However on the other hand, I asked whether this reliance on technology was destroying vital communcation skills that start in childhood, where children learn to interact together, find things to do and generally amuse themselves.

I fear several generations below me are pretty much incapable of amusing themselves without the aid of a touchscreen electronic device. While it is great to keep them occupied and engaging their brains, they also need time away from these devices to develop as human beings and not machines.

How are they going to cope in the workplace if they are not skilled at human interaction, but prefer to stare mindlessly at a screen all day?

On a recent press trip, a fellow journo was saying how he had to limit his child's use of his computer/smart device to an hour a day, which was used to play a Minecraft-style game. If the child didn't get the promised hour - there would be hell to pay. Almost like an addiction to online gaming.

On the flip side, another member of my breakfast party said how computers and devices were revolutionising schools, and in particular giving boys the confidence to express themselves - and that is definitely a good thing too. It does have its good points.

When I think back to the truly dire IT lessons I had to sit through - it was enough to make you lose the will to live - I'm glad things have advanced this far to be of actual benefit to young people's confidence.

I just worry that they are going to become ever more over reliant on technology and miss out on the simple things in life that matter so much.

And on my way home I saw this very point in action. There was a group of four children - ranging from about eight down to about three, and the first thing their mothers did was hand out the tablets, earphones and smartphones.

Within minutes, and after a few password related questions, they were all staring at their screens absolutely engrossed, allowing the mothers to engage in pester-free chat.

The girls were obvious One Direction fans (they were dressed in 1D kit) and they were watching self-made videos together and singing along, but the boys were doing very separate things.

But while I found it fascinating to watch them, I thought back to the days when I was a kid travelling anywhere - and we would be looking out the window, talking to each other and asking questions - probably irritating the hell out of fellow passengers - but taking an interest in the here and now.

These kids didn't look out the window once for the hour and 10 minutes that I was on the train.

Am I alone in finding that quite sad?