Are computers good for children?

Is prolonged exposure to computer good for a child's health? This is a very broad question encompassing a variety of factors regarding the use of computers by children. Since the invention of computers, they have been updating and advancing at a lightning speed. The need of harnessing the computer's powers for the getting various tasks completed is becoming greater and greater since the humans have started relying on them more as the time goes on. You can see computers everywhere, from your home to the markets, offices, and even your cell phones and children's toys.

Although an adult person might well understand the harms of using computers, but a child might not be capable of understanding the harms associated with prolonged exposure to computers. On one hand, as the computers provide a medium of entertainment for the children, on the other hand, they are also harmful for a child's health if used for longer times. The prolonged exposure to the monitor might be harmful to your child's eyes, and the child might not be able to understand this. There are a lot of games being introduced in the market, which attract children and force them to remain in front of a computer for longer times. This activity is very harmful for not only your child's eyes and brain in particular, but also for the whole body in general. As there is an extensive time spent on just sitting and staring at the monitor screens, it causes fatigue and result in various physical disorders and weight gain.

The children are also influenced by their environment in which they are brought up and majority of their behaviors are learnt from their parents and the people with whom they spend more time. Hence, if a child's father spends more hours of his time at home in front of the computer, then the child will also be prone to spending more time doing the same thing. However, this might not always be the case, as a larger portion of their behavior is learnt from the things that interest them. But the companies, while producing games for children of younger ages do not actually take this fact into account that the games which attract children and force them to a prolonged exposure to the computer might be very harmful to their health. Also, not much of these games producing companies try to teach children on how to remain healthy.

However, apart from all this, the computers have been quite useful even for the children. They allow them to learn a lot more things, which they could not have learnt manually. The major factor behind this is the use of multimedia technology to attract children and build interest in them, and also the interactive nature of the software. These software allow the children to learn by playing games, which not only increases their participation in the learning process, but also retain their interest.

In the end, I would like to mention here that the children are very sensitive and quick learners, hence if there is anything that influences them during their early age; it will surely leave an impact for years to come. Therefore, it is advisable for the parents to keep their child's exposure to the computer screens limited, controlled and supervised.