That children who don't use tablets have shorter attention spans and worst social skills. The "natural is better" argument is not research based. Society has long preached that things like reading books is great for kids but it's entirely unnatural just like tablets.
Generally research in this area has been extremely biased against electronics. You also have to control for the type of activities they are doing on the tablet.
For example the mental stimulation when playing an educational Daniel Tiger game is completely different than watching a toy sales driven TV show like Transformers. Both can be done on a tablet though.
Wasn't always the case, Plato felt it would dull your memory.
"They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
What Plato missed was that our ability to do higher order reasoning and synthesis has grown by leaps with books and now the internet. That's a pretty good trade-off for losing some memory.
On the other hand I don't think any great leaps are required to be wary of the effects of screen time. Even as an adult, if I get into the habit of scrolling through newsfeeds, I notice a strong effect of being distracted and seeking stimulus when doing work. My brain has been trained for quick hits of novelty.
In general, there's a night-and-day difference between activities that are easy and tempting vs. challenging but rewarding. I'm sure there are some great educational games on the iPad, but realistically the vast majority of screen time falls into the easy and tempting category.
Does there need to be a cost? From my experience, it's just like most activities you do with your children.
You can use it as babysitter or you can use it as a learning tool by participating and engaging with your child.
Here's how I've done it and he's doing great:
- We mostly use the tablet together, especially when we try a new app.
- I avoid the crack-head apps. The ones with bells, whistles, popups, and other toxic rewards for simple actives. It's fine to rewards like that for something challenging.
- We talk about what he's doing. For example, why he chooses certain colors or why he likes the features. Anything to start a conversation.
- Moderation. 15-30 minutes once every few days.
- Reference what he learned from the app during real-life activities. For example, one app he likes is a virtual dog washing app. He uses soap, a brush, water, etc. When we're playing together, we pretend to clean his stuffed animals just like he did in the app.
What's funny is that everyone just assumes the screen time is bad, and that our kids are naturally very smart (with the implicit suggestion that they'd know more without screen time). That may be true, but it isn't borne out by observation in our case.
We've found a lot of parenting is like that - people are pretty sure about what's good and bad, and the child's behavior/response one way or the other is either expected or a fluke, depending on what confirms assumptions about what's good and bad.
Our oldest is only 7, but we have 4 and we've noticed no ill effects from screen time, the kids are all social, they love to go to the park and play with friends (which we don't get to do nearly enough now...), to go for walks and ride bikes, in short they all seem well within the bounds of "normal" development for their ages.