Little Labors

Screens

The resolution is that the baby will have no relationship to screens — no iPhones, no iPads, no televisions, none of whatever it is that’s out there. “You have to get her a video machine,” my mother said, referring to her understanding of what technology might be out there. “You need to get her some programming, maybe in French,” my brother said. When I was young there was a desperate imperative to get computers into schools. Nowadays I read of studies that show that laptops given to children in rural African villages have ruined students’ education, the kids’ grades fall, the kids drop out. Another day I read that children who have a lot of “screen time” experience schematic diagrams of corners differently than children with little or no screen time. The implications of alternative ways of understanding diagrams of corners is obscure to me, but it seems important nevertheless. Maybe even paramount. I also read that children who cease to use screens for a time as short as one week make more eye contact and score better on tests of reading emotions on the faces of others. Sure, “studies” is usually just another word for mildly evidenced nonsense, but there they are. I myself spent eight or nine hours a day as a child watching television, mostly reruns of sitcoms. Though I am not a completely empty soul, I do feel that I could be improved upon. My child will not have screens, I decide. Not for a long time. Yet somehow, by the time she is one year old, my daughter can play music, page through photos, and call long distance on my iObject. This development happens off-screen.