Computer use in K12-classrooms

The past several years have witnessed a sharp rise in computer use. Computers, characterized by a prevailing and convenient means access to various information around the world, also become increasingly popular in K12-classrooms. However, the debate about whether computers should be introduced to children at the elementary-school level is continuously heated as well. Different people hold different opinions.

In the one hand, computers have changed people’s daily life from many aspects. People can book a plane ticket, order household necessities and attend visual conferences even travel around the world on computers through internet connection. In addition, people do not need to go to library and look for books they want shelf by shelf. Instead people can simply type the key words in the searching engine. Computers will give you a great number of related information about your topic within only a few seconds. Life, to some extent, is becoming much easier with computers.
save time

It is certainly agreed that computers are useful. Nevertheless, the use of computer at an early age, in the other hand, is limited with regard to children’s general properties. First, children are too young to be introduced to computers until they reach physical and metal maturity. Health problems, such as myopia, or pain on wrist, neck, and backbone, may occur as a result of overusing computers. It will be of great harm to their healthy growing up. Second, children may lack of social skills because they seldom interact with real worlds. Psychological research found that children who spend too much time on computers are more likely to have problems in social communication. Last but not least, vast majority of them have no or low self-control ability. If parents or teachers didn’t give them timely guide, they would probably overuse or inappropriately use computers. For example, they may addict to computer games or internet that would waste a lot of time.