"Today’s children have unprecedented access to technology," stated The Stuart Bienenstock Playground Scholarship, "And like everything else in life, there are pros and cons to the early exposure to technology.  Technology gets a ton of flak for its bad influence (primarily due to abuse and overuse). Since we’ve heavily documented the negative aspects of technology, it’s time we gave its positive side a fair shake."

So what exactly can today’s children gain from using technology? Turns out, there’s a lot of good – you just need to make sure you don’t let things get out of hand, and voila! Your child will graduate into a healthy adult when growing up on technology.

Below are just 8 benefits of technology that your child can leverage early on in their life.

1. Higher Capacity for Creativity

Children have an impressive capacity for creativity and don’t often have access to tools that allow them to express their imaginations. Technology fills this void and gives children a more robust platform to turn their thoughts into reality.

The pen and paper doesn’t have to be the only tool with which to express their artistry. If anything, the pen and paper can be used along with technological tools to draw a character. This skill, if built upon, could help them monetize their creativity.

The skills they learn by interacting with technology provides them with a wide range of tools with which to express their creativity. For example, coding is a skill, but making a mobile app is video game is a more creative venture made possible with the skill.

2. Leads to Greater Autonomy

The fact that children can quickly pull up an informative resource on search engines means that they’re no longer dependent on their parents or teachers for help. This makes education more accessible than ever before, through informational resources in the form of online libraries and even blog posts like this.

The advantage of easier access to information is that children can now figure many things on their own. It can encourage them to research further and follow their own train of thought. This process empowers them with academic confidence, independence, and builds their interest in new hobbies.

3. Makes Them Better Entrepreneurs

Granted kids still have a long way to go before they can make the critical decisions needed to manage a business, but early exposure to technology puts them on the fast track to entrepreneurship.

All of the skills that technology provides them with – such as creativity, relationship building, autonomy, and perseverance – go into making an entrepreneur.

Technology challenges children in every which way possible – but the earning potential is real, even with something as simple as reviewing a toy on YouTube.

4. Improved Hand-Eye Coordination

After engaging with video games and apps on their phones, children can significantly bolster their hand-eye coordination skills and motor skills.

Hand-eye coordination is when you follow an object on the screen and participate in activities that the application presents. Hand-eye coordination is an essential skill for children when they start writing or drawing.

Many video games encourage children to put together clues to solve a problem. In the context of real-world problems, these skills could be crucial in putting together literary analyses, research work, and other workplace tasks.

5. Prepares Them for the Future

Love it or hate it, technology will play an important role in the career path of a child. Even if your child takes a career path that isn’t technology-oriented, they may still have to interact with digital technology – if they are to stay competitive.

When children interact with technology, they become familiar with the basics of online communication. They also learn how to solve problems, navigate through them, and engineer out-of-the-box solutions. Acquiring this skill puts them in a much better place to navigate the workplace in the future.

What they learn today will play a huge role in helping them out in the future.

6. Job Prep

As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest advantages of technology is that it prepares children for tech jobs with high salaries.

All you have to do is take a cursory look at some of the biggest businesses of the world to realize that they’re all technology-oriented.  Whether it’s obvious big-brand names like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon or dinosaurs of the industry like Nestle and Walmart – they’re all at the forefront of technology.

What this means is that tech jobs are here to stay – for the long haul. Some of these jobs will never become redundant or offloaded to artificial intelligence.

7. Teaches Them How to Persevere

If there’s one thing video games are especially good at, it’s perseverance. Children learn how to fail (and grow a healthy tolerance for failure), and then figure out how to overcome that failure the next time they come across a tough enemy. This engages their intellect in ways that are simply not possible with conventional technological tools.

The end result is significantly improved cognition, an attribute that will prove handy later on in life.

For example, consider highly competitive online games such as Minecraft, requiring children to use skills they’ve learned to survive. As children find their character facing new and harsher environments, they’ll use their problem-solving skills to deal with opponents and win.

Even if they don’t win, the experience teaches them all they need to know about the unpredictability of life. In this sense, video games are among the few utilities that allow your child to exercise their independence, free of parental oversight.

8. Helps Them Build New Relationships

Technology in the form of social media and online video games facilitates socialization among children. Contrary to popular belief, technology doesn’t isolate children from social settings, it merely exposes them to a different type of social environment. Like every other hobby in life, children can connect with each other over video games, Facebook, and other online platforms.

These social skills can help them build meaningful relationships later on in life. For example, they can organize parties, design online games, and even learn how to code.

 Wrapping Up

Parents and teachers should set up a policy for technology and decide who can use which forms of technology, at what times, and where. They should also monitor their online activities to ensure they are staying safe. More importantly, parents should reframe the way they think about technology – that it’s a useful tool that can build lifelong skills, and not a threat.

About Stuart Bienenstock Playground Scholarship