Worries About Child Development with the Influence of Technology

As technology becomes more influential in the lives of this generation’s children, worries and wonders have aroused about the affects these devices will have on their development. A recent study organized by researchers at Michigan State University’s Children and Technology Project tested the relationship informational technology may have with creativity in young children. The two articles, Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the Children and Technology Project, by Linda A. Jackson (lead investigator) and Research: Video games help with creativity in boys and girls, by Mike Snider, discuss the ground breaking discoveries made by the MSU project about the existence of a positive causal relationship between creative thinking and playing video games. However, where the research article develops accountability and credibility with in-depth analysis of the study’s methods. The popular press article gives vague explanation of the study itself and instead appeals to the audience about how this new discovery translates into daily life and the future.
Jackson’s research article elaborately explains the research project testing the theory that informational technological devices (IT) such as cell phones, internet, computer games, and video games have a potential causal relationship with creative thinking in children. To ensure the most reliable and valid measure, they used The Torrance Test of Creative, developed by Guilford (1967) to measure creativity level. The study consisted of 491 twelve year old children. Of the 491 sample, 47% where male, 53% where female; 34% where African American, 66% where Caucasian.
Originally 591 surveys were randomly mailed to the parents of children who attended 20 pre-selected middl...

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... socially loved tablets and iPads may prove useful for children age three and four to develop school readiness skills. The discoveries from the MSU project have brought amazing change for the future of video gamers, and have already led to the speculation of beneficial techniques with other IT devices.
Regardless of the astonishing discoveries by MSU project, there are a majority of other reasons creativity could relate to video games. One possibility is that creative children are actually drawn to the dynamic, strategy driven, imaginative, puzzling aspects that video games possess. Maybe the creativity that they already embrace is what causes them to find video games appealing, in that it tests their already creative mind. We may never know the real reason, but the MSU project has definitely revolutionized a new view of technology in our already Informational Age.