Over the past 15 years, the use of technology killed the greeting card, changed the way we find love, watch TV, read, and even how to discipline children. The average American spends 11 hours using some form of electronic device every day. A recent study from Mary Meeker, a venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst, shows that each day, Americans check phones 150 times, 100 hours of video get uploaded to YouTube, and 500 million photos get uploaded to social media.
Junior Brayden Itz uses his school-issued iPad to do most to nearly all of his school work.
“I use my phone to social network and talk with my friends a lot,” Itz said. “I also use my iPad and laptop for homework. I’m using technology during the majority of my day.”
Itz got to see many new technology products make their big debut since he was born in 1997. Nokia phones, floppy disks, VHS tapes and beepers represented the smart phones, laptops and Blu-ray disks that get sold in stores now. During that time, children’s toys included Furbee, SEGA Playstation and password journals.
“I remember having an old Sony computer in our office and I would play computer games, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Itz said. “I also had a Gameboy Color that I loved to play Pokémon on when I was about 4 years old.”
Nowadays, children using and playing games on their iPads or smartphones can be seen running around at Walmart.
“It’s good that a three-year-old knows how to use an iPad in the sense that they can play games and use it for education,” Itz said. “But there’s things out there on the web that three year olds could gain access to that could be bad for them to see.”
As for his own personal use, Itz feels that having his own iPad for school purposes benefits his working conditions. He likes how there’s not a bunch of paper scattered all over the floor and the Internet remains available to independently look up questions.
“I think using iPads in our school has the potential to be beneficial to our education as long as it’s being put to the right use,” Itz said.
