By Dylan Ellison

I’ve officially reached the age where everyone I know either has children or one on the way. As I flip through my friends’ early-parenting lives on Facebook, I can’t help but think, “How much television will they let their kids watch? How immersed in media will they be before they can speak?”

For most of them, technology will be more present and familiar than food. This won’t be the result of bad parenting or neglect, but simply the result of the time period. Depriving a child of exposure to technology in an age completely saturated in it would certainly set them back several giant steps behind everyone else. You could even make the argument that watching television is good for children.

So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is unsubstantial filler. We don’t want to pass on our mindless habits of scrolling through Facebook while sitting in a waiting room. Or reading uninteresting tweets by less interesting celebrities because we’re bored. Or turning on the TV, not to actually watch it, but because it feels more normal to have some type of media playing when we’re busy with something else.

As pediatrician Ari Brown tells Wired, “While television is on, there’s less talking, and talk time is very important in language development.” This is not the function we want technology to have in our children’s lives. We should be passing it on as a useful, stimulating part of life, not a mind-numbing one.

I’m not saying it’s bad to let your child watch TV. Television can be a provocative, enriching experience that encourages critical thought. Keeping it that way can be difficult, however. The key is to simply ask your child about what they’ve watched. What did they like about it? What didn’t they like? What character was their favorite? And why? Talk to them about commercials. Tell them what they’re for. Don’t let watching a show be a purely passive experience.

Most programs made for young kids include some educational material whether it’s basic math, vocabulary, or life lessons, but as people who remember watching these programs as children might recall, a lot of these lessons don’t click as they’re intended to. Sometimes they are too basic and dumbed-down to be helpful, while other times they are too complicated to grasp without having been in a given situation before. Sometimes they are just plain boring. Having conversations with your child about these educational elements can help put them in the right context as well as give you an idea of what programming is on the right level for them.

Efforts are also being made to develop tech for kids that pulls them away from the television and pushes them to more creative activities. Disney’s innovative augmented reality coloring book is one of the most impressive of these. In the coloring book, children can color characters however they please, then through a tablet screen, see their colored version of that character lift off the page and interact with physical objects. As the timeless creative outlet of coloring loses more children to television and other media every year, Disney has created the perfect middle ground between the old and the new. Encouraging creativity in children through technology is, honestly, genius.

And Disney isn’t the only one doing this. Nintendo’s popular Pokemon franchise is seeing the augmented reality upgrade as well. In Pokemon GO, players use a smartphone to find creatures hiding behind real objects and then try to catch them. While the game has yet to be released, it seems likely that Nintendo will include a children’s option that will allow Pokemon to be found in a backyard or house. This would stimulate a sense of curiosity in kids that might be stifled by other video games. What kid wouldn’t want to play hide and seek with a Pokemon?

As virtual and augmented reality gain more attention from consumer and developers alike, expect to see more games like these. As this infographic from Rutgers University illustrates, the virtual and augmented reality industry is expected to reach a net worth of $150 billion in the next four years, making the technology more accessible to everyone. Apps and games for kids will be only a few clicks away.

Whichever technologies you expose your child to, just remember to keep them aware of what they’re experiencing. Keep them present. Zoning out is fine (and even inevitable) some of the time, but it shouldn’t be a primary activity for anyone, especially as they’re developing.

So if you find yourself letting the TV be your babysitter, turn off, tune in, and drop what you’re doing. Your kid’s head has a lot going on in there. Find out what it is.

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About the Author

Dylan Ellison is a freelance writer with no blog, no car, and no life.