Technology hampering Children's ability to hold pencils/pens

middle.road

Granite Stoopid...
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Well, here's a side effect that I betcha noone saw coming.
From an article in the Guardian:

Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior pediatric doctors have warned. An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children's finger muscles from developing sufficiently to enable them to hold a pencil correctly, they say. "Children are not coming into school with the hand strength and dexterity they had 10 years ago," said Sally Payne, the head pediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England foundation NHS Trust. "Children coming into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not be able to hold it because they don't have the fundamental movement skills. "To be able to grip a pencil and move it, you need strong control of the fine muscles in your fingers,. Children need lots of opportunity to develop those skills." Payne said the nature of play had changed. "It's easier to give a child an iPad than encouraging them to do muscle-building play such as building blocks, cutting and sticking, or pulling toys and ropes. Because of this, they're not developing the underlying foundation skills they need to grip and hold a pencil."
 
I endured this silly movie at the fire house some years back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy. I saw some parallels with todays society.
when it comes to basic common sense and skill. Without getting political, we have poor parenting and education to thank for this troubling trend.
Although my penmanship resembles a doctors script, I can use a pen/pencil to draw.;) I will admit to poor spelling tho :guilty:.
 
I endured this silly movie at the fire house some years back https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy. I saw some parallels with todays society.
when it comes to basic common sense and skill. Without getting political, we have poor parenting and education to thank for this troubling trend.
Although my penmanship resembles a doctors script, I can use a pen/pencil to draw.;) I will admit to poor spelling tho :guilty:.
At least Firestopper, you have an interest in technology, nowadays I am comiing across adults more frequently , who are about the intellect of a six year old, We can thank the modern cellphone with its useless drivel for that, When the kids who cannot even hold a pencil correctly grow up what a nightmare world we will be in.
 
Made my machine tool instructor nuts when my peers put the mills and lathes on powerfeed and picked up their phones to text/facebook or something.
He was always concerned that they'd crash the machine or somehow lose a body part through inatttnetion.
The Tech School department directors was concerned that if Instructors disciplined that they'd lose students.

Daryl
MN
 
Indeed, these days who knows how to properly roll a clay tablet and use a stylus to press cuneiform characters into it's surface. :p

Seriously though, it's an old trope, even the works of Homer (8th or 7th centrury BC) suggest that mankind is on a decline and that each generation is somehow less than the one before it. Were that true, we'd not have achieved any of the things we have over the last 3000 years. I think as we get older we sometimes forget how foolish and ignorant we were as children and believe we were greater than we really were. I recently had a discussion with a friend who remarked at how "our generation" (baby boomers) had a much better work ethic than kids today, to which I could only reply, "Yep, when I think of hippies I think of dedicated, hard workers". :p There are slackers in every generation, same as there are self motivated individuals.

Given the Guardian doesn't rank too highly in my esteem, but I seriously question the assumptions in the article. The amount of time a person, even a school aged child at any point in human history, actually holds a writing implement is pretty small compared to the amount of time they are holding and manipulating any of a variety of other objects. Are we to assume that before litteracy was common nobody had any grip strength or manual dexterity?
 
Made my machine tool instructor nuts when my peers put the mills and lathes on powerfeed and picked up their phones to text/facebook or something.
He was always concerned that they'd crash the machine or somehow lose a body part through inatttnetion.
The Tech School department directors was concerned that if Instructors disciplined that they'd lose students.

Daryl
MN
That's scary. Just like the couple of train operators who were txt'ing at the time of a crash...
 
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