You are in fact preaching, just not from direct experience raising children.

Please do not give your future 2-year-old marbles to learn physics with. Choking hazard. Harder to swallow an iPad.

The hard part I find is letting them hurt themselves as part of their learning.

Indeed our 2 year-old just used a kitchen knife (about as long as his forearm) for the first time a couple of weeks ago to chop the potatoes he peeled. Close supervision.

"He could swallow a marble", well yes, he could bash his brother's head in with the corner of an iPad, get hit by a meteorite, run in to a wall, drown himself in the toilet, etc..

If you supervise your children, they won't swallow marbles or anything else. There are many vendors of wood toys (usually European) that are meant for small children. An ipad, is in the same realm as TV -- not meant for small kids.

You're aware that they put CHOKING HAZARD labels on things not because those things should be kept away from children at all times, but to alert inattentive parents to supervise their children?

The CHOKING HAZARD is not an intrinsic property of the object, but rather of the situation.

I don't care if I get down voted but this made me laugh so hard.

Further there is a lot more to the iPad than simply "video games". For example, my daughter loves looking at pictures. Both of herself and her friends, but also of her grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, people whom she only sees a few times year and so the photos are the main way she has to remember them between visits. And even the "video games" are genuinely educational, teaching things like shape matching, colours, the names of animals and so on.

Then there is the "selfish" aspect. After 3 hours running around the playground followed by an hour of playing the build-a-tower-of-blocks-and-knock-them-down game I want a few minutes to enjoy the luxuries of life, like going to the bathroom by myself or drinking a cup of coffee without someone trying to spill it, and the iPad is a good way to distract her for those precious minutes.

There's a wide range of activities on the iPad, going from plain video games to pure learning bits (letters, sounds, cooking, 3d moves etc) which makes it much more interesting than only "video games" IMO (and this generates a lot of discussions centered around learning too!).

On the frequency of use: it's pretty much like email for adults. You have to learn when to stop and when to do something else, learn to keep a balance.

At first we had small cards (like 2 x 10mn and 1 x 20mn for each day) to ensure he would not spend more time than we thought was good for him.

Now he mostly plays at his own rhythm, and tend to say at some point: "Dad, I played a lot on the iPad, now I need to take some fresh air".

Apart from that, all the remaining signs (learning to write, space placement, handling legos, social exchanges, sport etc) show no "damages" caused by the iPad :)

In conclusion: for me balance is everything (but like for most subjects); and there's a lot of good things to pick in the iPad.

I concede your point that the iPad can stretch/blur the notion of what a "game" is, in interesting ways. Although I am inclined to limit my kids' "screen time" (to zero, at two years old), I would never choose to limit my kids' "book time",.

But perhaps my thinking about it is too coarse, since iPad apps can be hybrids of both, or combine their attributes into something completely new.

Perhaps I will try out your time ticket idea and see how it goes. (But not from 2 years old... maybe 3 or 4.)

Right. How would your screen time limitation work if the screen was being used to read a book? And the book may be even more interactive than a traditional book. Then there's a line that can get crossed where the book has now become a game. But even then, if it's educational and informative as a book is, why limit that just because it's on a screen?

Books are not interactive. Isn't that the point, they're supposed to be entirely passive objects used solely to feed ideas to the imagination/consciousness/memory.

>why limit that just because it's on a screen? //

To encourage the child to develop interaction in the real world first.

Kids books often are. Many of my daughters favorite books have lots of flaps and pull tabs that make things move. Opening the flap on the third thing and seeing the number '3' or guessing which item is in which box based only on the shape of the box and then opening the box to see if you where right is endless fun if you're into that sort of thing.

This I think promotes my point (I would!).

If you only ever share pop-up books, coloring books, sticker books, flap-books, texture books, carpet books (they have samples of carpet in them), etc., with your child then they're not being exposed to the central concept of receiving ideas from a passive medium and giving life to those ideas internally without a proscribed pattern as to how one should do that.

Mind you I've no strong evidence that the move through object presentation, to picture based story, to picture accompanied story, and on to pure prose, genuinely does lead to a development of imagination (rather than say just accompany such a development).

Some, perhaps, but far from all of them. Most of them have the basic linear narrative structure of books and encourage the basic process of starting at page 1 and following the 'story' page by page to the end. The pop-ups and flaps assist in driving the story rather than replacing them.

On a side note I don't own an iPad nor intend to. Maybe a wii (she's already pretty curious about the tv remote control). However, I'll probably hold that off and let her enjoy the real world for a while.

There might be evidence that early exposure to television, before the child's neurological development is ready to deal with it, is harmful. But I'm not aware of "an established body of evidence" proving that TV is harmful. Do you have sources? I'm very interested in seeing such sources, as I used to be under the impression that TV is harmful, but I am now convinced otherwise.

Be careful ignoring the scientific method here. You are equating a fear of bad side effects from TV with bad side effects with iPad use. Fear is not the scientific method.

There are many dimensions to consider when evaluating harm. For example, in early childhood development, the child desperately wants to imitate the adult (or role model), and will suffer certain side effects (e.g., problems with self confidence) if forbidden to imitate. Thus even if there is harm in using the iPad, there could easily be more harm in forbidding its use (but this can easily be remedied by never allowing the child to see the adult using the iPad).

I urge you to be careful about following any lines of parenting that mold the child (e.g., the child should be outside playing ball, not inside doing X). I see parents force their kids to conform with preset ideas of how a child should be, ignoring how early child development works, and thus cause pscyhological harm (e.g., internalization of fear of the parent). An analogy would be the parent teaching the child how to walk by grabbing the kid's legs and moving them in micro-adjustments; the kid will end up with poor motor control.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/128/5/1040.abs...

The problem with TV in particular seems to be the lack of interactivity. Children learn best by getting meaningful feedback from other people, and television cannot provide that. iPad apps and computers should be able to overcome that limitation, but I think we're early in the process of understanding the most effective ways to provide that for children, especially young children.

2 yr olds can't pull the key caps off of them.

(unlike, say, macbook pros.)

So, I've got three, from 2.5 to 7.5. They've seen mommy and daddy working with computers and ipads all their life. (well, ipads for the last 2 years). No tv. Minimal netflix. A little screen time for other stuff, maybe a couple hours a week. Their latest thing is downloading lego instructions and reviewing them to see how stuff goes together, and to see if they have enough parts to build some of the sets we haven't bought.

The third one has gotten a lot more screen time than the other two at their ages, just because he's got to do what the big boys are doing. He's only twigged on to what a mouse does in the last couple of months, because the ipad is so much more direct. If the touch screen doesn't work, then it's a broken computer. It's strange seeing that distinction so differently between the kids, as the older ones didn't get the whole touch screen thing till they were much older.

There's a lot of interesting observations you can make about UI when you're watching someone with a much different POV than you have.

Maybe he won't be the next Steve Jobs because of it.

But what has been interesting is that recently, he is much less interested in TV and video games and far more interested in physical world gaming with his peers: Bey Blades, Pokemon, Yugioh, and in particular Warhammer. He's been buying figures, paints and brushes not the latest version of Madden with his money.

Keep in mind that it was easier for your mother to do what she did than it is to do something similar today - kids programming wasn't available on 13 channels 24x365 and it was considered inappropriate to market to children in the way that is now standard [see Juliet Schor's Born to Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Buy-Commercialized-Consumer-Cultu...]

Is there? I dislike children being raised by television as much as the next guy, but the chapter in Freakonomics on child development says there's no correlation between children's test scores and the amount of television they watch, according to the data from ECLS (http://nces.ed.gov/ecls/).

(edited to correct typo)

Of course, anecdote != data, so meh. But I do have a hunch that TV and social media both breed a passive consumption habit that can be hard to detect and even harder to get rid of.

That said, our anecdotes at least agree. I'm with you on that hunch, too.

Playing games may not seem productive, but the types of games children play do prepare them for more complex challenges later in life, and if anything I think computers will become more important over time. So, I suspect spending a few hours a week banging on an iPad is probably more useful than harmful for the average 2 year old.

Imagine what happens then: The whole app moves up, down or worst, sideways and switches to another app altogether. This interrupts the experience and is very confusing. I've seen this first hand. It is truly perplexing for children in the 2 to 7 year old range.

Another side-effect is that this makes it nearly impossible to write apps that actually encourage the little ones to fully engage and plant their paws on the device. Without turning off multi-touch gestures the app won't be good for more than three seconds of use. What's worst is that you also stand a good chance to get negative reviews on the app store from frustrated parents who don't understand that this is not the developer's fault.

Imagine the thrill of driving around town while your kids is playing with the iPad in the back seat and complaining/whining/crying every thirty seconds because he/she accidentally switched from the nice educational app you had them play with to your Facebook page due to accidentally using the app switching gesture. Brilliant.

While multi-touch gestures might be a good idea (I as an adult never use them) they provide no way for developers to disable them within their app, thus causing usability problems for kids (and probably some use cases with people with motor impediments).

Yes, the user can disable multi-touch altogether from settings. As an app developer you have to decide whether or not you want to put up a notice, warning or info page on your app warning parents about this problem and recommending that they disable multi-touch. Might you incur Apple's wrath for doing so? Don't know.

I've seen an app on startup recommend turning them off if they're on. (Which doesn't mean that Apple considers that OK, of course, just that the reviewer of that one app did.)

Ouch. I hadn't even thought of that.

I was just going to say it's ridiculous that you have this powerful device with advanced touch screen and you're developing software for it, but Apple prevents you from simply exerting control over the device.

A non-crippled OS should give you near exclusive access with minimal meddling, like Desktop PC games. Full screen, raw touch data and no accidental gestures.

I don't understand why hackers could abide by this.

(the next part is a bit off topic btw, but maybe some professional iOS app devs can shed some light on the matter for me?)

I work with kids (a bit older, ages 8-12) teach them to do creative things on the computer (GameMaker, GIMP, some HTML, etc). I'm still working to figure out a good method to learn them actual code (not all, but some are definitely smart enough). A lot of them ask me if I can teach them "how to make apps". I don't know (don't have a smartphone or tablet), but at some point I thought ok let's figure that out.

The kid had an iPod Touch so we started looking around for some iOS SDK or whatever (I feared writing a whole app would be too large of a project for him, but now I wanted to know and it taught us both a valuable lesson).

Can anyone who writes iOS apps maybe confirm this for me, because it seems pretty much impossible:

- You can't actually load an app that you just coded onto your own device, to try it out. Instead you can only test it in an emulator.

- The only way to get the new app onto the actual device is via the AppStore. Is that really true? Do even professional app developers not see their app run on an actual device instead of the emulator before the app is in a suitable state (as judged from the emulator tests) to place on the AppStore and even then only if they or someone buys it? Really?

- This SDK/emulator kit is only available for the Mac. So if you don't own a Mac, you can't develop iOS apps.

- Money. Does the SDK/emulator kit cost money or not? I couldn't figure it out because I stopped looking as soon as I saw it was Mac-only, anyway. But depending on which route I took through the Apple ID developer program website, it alternatively told me it was free and that it cost me $100. And then to be able to place the program onto a physical device I own, I need to pay a yearly $100 for the AppStore?

(I probably got some details wrong here and maybe I missed some programs or ways to do things so please correct me)

The centre I work at is mostly run by volunteers and doesn't use Macs or has $100/yr to give to Apple for the "privilege" of teaching a new generation of hacker kids how to develop applications for their petty locked up hardware/software universe. So there won't be any "how to make apps for iOS" lessons in the foreseeable future.

That's what I learned. And the kid that joined me on this wild goose chase learned that he most definitely will be getting an Android as his next smartphone.

However, that $99 fee also includes the right to get a testing certificate that lets you push what you develop onto an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to test with. So if you sign up for the developer program, you can test on a real device. You just can't get it loaded onto other people's devices without going through the Apple approval process.

Xcode (the IDE) itself is free. You can probably run iOS apps in a simulator (note it is NOT an emulator) with the free download, but forget about testing on an actual device.

Clearly this program is aimed at professional developers, and for them it is worth the price -- the iOS ecosystem and SDKs being far more developed and refined than Android's. But for a bunch of young padawans just starting out in coding it is prohibitively expensive unfortunately.

Aside from these problems, Objective-C is a bit much for a rank beginner, especially a kid, to bite off and chew. So, for that matter, is Java. It would be possible, and probably a lot more practical, to introduce them to JavaScript and have them develop "Web apps" that run inside an iPhone's Safari web browser. Some quite sophisticated games are possible this way with HTML 5.

The testing certificate makes sense, I was really wondering about that, there's only so much you can test in a simulator (touch screen behaviour, for instance. I'd assume you could emulate it with a mouse, but you can't test the full UX that way).

Good call on the JS/webapps too. I hadn't really considered what language one develops iOS apps in when I started investigating, but from what I've seen about Objective-C, I agree it would be a bit too much.

Personally I was aiming to get them interested in writing simple Python programs, perhaps with PyGame so they can quickly get some graphics on the screen (text console output doesn't have a lot of appeal I'm afraid..). Most important reason is that Python lacks boilerplate--I don't want to make the kids do all sorts of boring set up coding before they get to see some results. (second most important reason is that it's the language I'm currently using most)

Boilerplate might be a bit of an issue with JS web apps too. But "can I put my (GameMaker) game on my website?" is a question asked even more often than how to make apps :) [it is possible btw, but not with the free version of GameMaker]. So maybe I could set up some simple framework with a JS Canvas and see if they'll bite. Maybe even better would be just to code some simple game for myself, for fun, show it off, and I already know of at least two kids that will try real hard to figure out how I pulled that off, and they'll be happy to find out it was written inside the same HTML tags they wrote their website with :) (another good reason is, before I caught the Python-bug, I was coding JS all day :) )

Anyway, thanks again for your explanation!

I know some (adult) people who are itching to get into (video) game design. The first thing I always tell them is "Learn to program. Start with Python." Then I point them to PyGame to let them get started building the kinds of programs they set out to build, quickly.

This despite Scheme being my favorite programming language, and the one I "think" in. But Python really is the micro BASIC of the 21st century. It's the best "type commands at it and see what happens" language for beginners. Not to diminish its obvious appeal to professionals, of course.

There's a good TED talk where they go into the differences in language processing in a child of 12 months vs 15 months. Infants and very young children are doing so fucking much to deal with learning the basic rules of the real world, and how to process human language. (One of the notable things is that American children exposed to a real human speaking Chinese to them on a regular basis were able to differentiate the sounds of Chinese as well as Chinese kids; those in control groups exposed to video of people speaking Chinese didn't fare any better than regular American kids.)

I feel like the awesome and mysterious stuff going on in the child's mind at that age in order to come to grips with the real world, in its awesome complexity, is too important to be displaced by addictive recreational activities that can just as well come later. I don't want them to become masters of the small and limited worlds in which games exist, at the expense of a diminished mastery of the intricacies and awesome breadth of the actual world we live in.

https://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_geniu...

I'd be surprised if there were (m)any people who think a 2 year-old should not use an iPad "at all".

I guess the jury is still out since my children are 6 and 22 months but so far the iPad seems like a spectacular device for them...certainly better than books. My son has been playing memory games, alphabet, numbers, spanish, songs, angry birds, plants v zombies, drawing, facetime, pattern matching, etc, etc, etc. I'm not sure how this is going to end up badly.

Its a matter of balance, though. My kids get tons of time with the blocks and marbles (we play "kügel-bahn" like mad in our Austrian household - a form of "real-world" Marble Madness) but then we're also partial to a little Pacman now and then. The kids love both options, but given the choice, and if the sun is shining, they'd much rather be outside kicking dirt and climbing trees. The point is: engage your kids, and don't ever leave them alone watching TV. That is pure evil.

Hyperfocus is a symptom of ADHD.

With all due respect, I must ask: have you ever interacted with an individual diagnosed with (severe) ADHD?

Also, please clarify: are you claiming that those whom have been diagnosed with ADHD aren't sick or that they've been incorrectly diagnosed?

I appreciate your time and look forward to your responses on this matter.

I never claimed to be offended by your statements, but as an individual with ADHD, I'm interested in exploring this further.

In particular, I'm interested in the treatment(s) you reckon'll help the most with my symptoms. If you'd like, we can arrange a one-on-one IM session to discuss them, as these matters require individual attention, rather than broad generalizations over a particular (diagnosed) group.

I, once again, appreciate your time and look forward to your responses on this matter.

Also, let's not pretend it's ok because it's educational. Everything is educational when you're 2. You get a better education making a salad chopping cucumber and carrots with a crinkle cutter than playing an iPad game.

My kids are 11 and 8.

My son prepares tiramisus, sushis etc with us, and he watched the recipes on the iPad :)

Then I definitely agree on the "constant entertainment" point: I'm doing my best to ensure he knows to "do nothing" a bit each day.

Over-stimulating is something I'm very careful about!

Could you expand on this and be specific please?

My two-year old loves to push buttons. Remote controls, toys, any buttons with some feedback (and many without) are fair game. On iPad/iPhone, spends as much time on any typing app watching letters appear as he does on a game (only tried a game or two). Trickiest bit really is getting him out of whatever menu he wanders into - author was dead-on there.

TV he'll watch for 10-15 minutes and wander/play with something else, sometimes glancing up when something catches his attention.

I'm with you that with either device these are doses of 15-20 minutes not "babysitting." But "at all" is extreme.

We do something similar with our 20-mo old. We're less hardcore about the TV^WNetflix thing than your mother. If he wants to watch Eeebee or Old MacDonanld he tells us and we let him (within reason).

About 4 weeks ago, he learned to play with Duplo building blocks (which we've had for several months), and he almost never asks to watch TV now. We estimate he used to watch about 6 hrs/week before.

My personal experience (Android Tablet user/iPod touch user) here.

a) The iPod touch keeps my daughter occupied whilst we are waitig for food. Do I really want my 3 year old daughter getting restless in restaurant and annoying everyone else? The parameters are set such that i) iPod touch usage stops once the food arrives and ii) Drawing only (because there is no sound). It allows her to explore her creativity

b) Flash cards - My 3 year old plays this on her own and learns how to spell through this

c) Photo albums on the iPod touch - She proudly takes her own pictures and has a great time relating her pictures and experience to other people. IMHO, this is great way for her to open up her otherwise shy nature

d) Learning the motion of writing letters and numbers even before she can hold a pencil properly

e) Nursery Rhymes on the iPod touch. She loves it

There are no-no of course. Some of them are a) No TV shows on the iPod touch b) No games on the iPod touch (except Angry Birds, which is for the father's entertainment) c) No pop music

I have two handicapped children. One of whom is severely handicapped and even at age 18 has a mental age of around 6. I would make every argument given in this article and then some. The most "fun" I've had with an iPad is when she was placed recently in a group home and I had to protect it against all sorts of things she accidentally does, as well as underpaid staffers (not my decision there by the way) who may well want to play with it when she's at school.

Other "child" is around 20 and mainly has the issues you would normally associate with Tourette's. Guess how many of these arguments still hold water given his problems with fine motor control and tendency to react based on impulse?

Now I think that shows that whether you feel a 2 year old should use an iPad (and regardless of whether you think they should they probably will), I think the article makes a case that certainly expands well to anyone with usability limitations.

So far he hasn't started reading more books, but he's started playing outside / imaginatively more. Even though it didn't have 100% the desired effect, I love the outcome still.

Granted, the nature of the medium plays a role, there is probably a much higher likelihood of bad / non-stimulating content on TV than in books. However, given that the iPad can act as a book, it logically follows it should have good content as well.

Is the TV having a negative impact? Or is the child just suffering because they arent having a positive impact from other experiences? I think an hour or so in front of a good educational (in the broad sense) TV show, game or iPad app could be great, but repeated days with no other stimulation/interaction is the real problem.

Time spent on an iPad by a 2-4 year old is time spent not learning more important things.

[0] Those circular toys that play animal sounds. http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=10&e=sandslanding

We let her play with pictures and she LOVES the xylophone app along with the Piano app.

I think you will find it much different reality than you actually think.

I don't see the big issue, it's something in his environment that he's curious about. It's not a direct physical danger, I let him explore it.

I built one of such apps (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toddler-trainer-hd/id49632353...) and took extra care to tuck away all menus and settings in a triple-clicked menu, so toddlers can't access it.

Interesting article and suggestions. I'll have to incorporate a few of the ideas.

I don't think there is any evidence to support that at all. Do you have a source?