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Introduction

Technology is a significant component for human development in the 21th century. With the aid of technology, our next generations would develop learning skills easier, faster, and more effective. Tablets and smartphones are the most popular sources of technology nowadays. Easy to use, attractive, and convenient are the key features that make tablets the most useful technology for children development. However, there are negativities within the use of tablets. The main goal of this paper is to prove to the readers the benefits as well as the negative effects of tablets on future generations. This is seen through a lack of functions, security risk to users, social problems, and potential cause of physical and mental diseases.

Background

Tablets have been the most popular gadgets within our society in the first half of 2010s. However, many tablets have come out way before that time period but made no remarkable success. According to Huffington Post, in the first decade of 21st century, some of the first tablets were the Compaq Tablet (2001), Microsoft Smart Display (2002), Motion Computing LS800 (2005), Axiotron ModBook (2007), etc. (Smith, 2010). Only when the iPads of Apple Inc. came out in 2010; tablet was a highlight within technology users. A tablet is a portable computer which has touch screen display, battery, and Wi-Fi cellular when it first came out. For the recent generation, a trendy, up-to-date tablet like the new iPad Pro has 4G cellular, back and front cameras, fingerprint passcode etc. Even though tablets came out half a decade before 2010. IPads where truly those which represent the definition of tablets.

Potential Benefit

Portable is the most important aspect of why people use tablets. With the function of a computer and the size of a book, tablets are easy to carry around. People can quickly use internet, read books, and play games, etc. everywhere, any time they want with just a few tabs on the screen. Tablets can afford all of the basic functions of a computer such as calendar, email, internet, camera, music, photo, etc. Schools across America have been using tablets for their curriculum purposes. As stated in Negroponte’s research paper, children can learn a great deal by themselves and tablets can help kids to learn reading, calculating, painting, etc. through lively applications (2012). They enhance the ability of children to learn, problem solve, and convey their ideas (Couse, 2010). From kindergartens to high schools, tablets are proved to be helpful for students to develop their learning skills. According to Leslie Couse in her research paper, “children who use computers have been found to show greater gains in intelligence, structural, knowledge, problem solving, and language skills compared with those who do not use technology in their learning” (Couse, 2010).

Ethical Issues

There are some infamous issues about tablets that still exist. Glitches, low battery life, and most importantly, price. While using a tablet, users get used to the fact that the apps would occasionally crashing, slowly, or even restarting by itself. Users would normally lose the data they have without anyway to retrieve it back. Some of the “well rated” apps for education have limited to no instructions for teachers and students. Teachers and students sometime got into difficulties while using tablets as “they encountered glitches associated with learning this new technology” (Couse, 2010). When it is hard to understand, the class would waste time to solve the inconvenient problems when glitches on apps occur.

Low battery life is another significant issues where tablets only last a couple of hours which cause difficulties among users. Imagine a student who is about to present his project on his iPad but the tablet runs out of battery, what would he do? Are tablets considered as computers? Many have asked that question because a computer should be multitasked. A tablet some time cannot replace many functions of a computer. Tablet apps still cannot give the complex, sophisticate qualities that exist on PCs programs. For examples are Adobe Photoshop, MAGIX Music Maker, iZOTOPE, and many others software are necessary to many people’ life but are not compatible on table.

Price is another factor that prove tablets are not taking over the jobs of computers yet. People are totally wrong with the fact that buying a tablet would save more money due to their size. For example, an iPad would cost $750 to $950 while a computer only cost $400 to $500, and with more functions. According to Rankothge in his research paper, poor families, and communities, “will hardly afford the purchase and the maintenance of these [tablets] devices” (2012).

Working with tablets would limit and reduce the traditional learning methods such as group discussions, team works, etc. Teachers also need to spend lots of effort to select suitable, helpful apps for the lectures. However, according to Leslie Couse’s research paper, until the end of the school day, “it was almost impossible to determine accurately the depth of actual learning that was occurring” (2010).

Security Concerns

With the advance of technology, online data storage is a place people can keep their digital properties on the internet. However, these properties might be easily hacked by individuals with negative intentions. The most notorious example about online data storage hacking was in 2014 when thousand private pictures of Hollywood celebrities were hacked from their iCloud accounts and published online.

“Parental control is considered important for children technology usage” (Tahir, 2015). Cyberspace is a place with full of risks and problems for kids. Cyberbullying, sexting, blackmailing, identity thefts are the few examples of how dangerous the internet is. Violent games are easy to download which might develop aggressive, hostile behaviors to kids. Tablets might not be a safe place for children since there are many dark features on the internet such as adult contents, hateful speech, banned videos, etc.

Social Problems

Tablets are addictive to children. Aside from useful apps, there are others that might not be profitable, but also harmful as well. They might cause both physically and mentally diseases to children from myopic, drowsiness, to some serious ones such as autism, etc. Tablets also cause great “impact on head and neck posture than conventional desktop and laptop PCs” (Bertolucci, 2012). When tablets apply to the curriculum, teachers find it hard to manage their classes since they cannot control what kids do on the screens of their tablets. According to Tony Bradley, all parents have to do is to watch over what children do on tablets to “guard against inappropriate behavior and otherwise protect kids” (Bradley, 2011). There are recent accidents caused by overheated tablets which sometime catch them on fire. By spending excessive amount of time on tablets, it would “adverse effects on children’s health and social skills by isolating children from other things (e.g. physical activity and social life) around them which as well are important for their development and growth” (Tahir, 2015).

Further Required Research

There are not a certain rules or laws about how parents should provide tablets to their children. Manufacturers, parents and “app developers could also benefit from working alongside teachers to learn more about suitable content and features to better support and extend student learning” (Fallon, 2014). Because teachers and parents do not always know what’s out there in the cyberspace. The later generation of tablets should have programs that can prevent any negativities and inconvenient for children development. “Therefore future research should focus on other aspects also such as the role of educational apps in schools, involving teachers and the role of mobile technology in teaching” (Tahir, 2015).

Conclusion

Tablets are extremely useful for students’ development with active, lively apps. They make the process of receiving knowledge and information faster and more convenient. With multiple useful applications, tablets can “highlight the importance of the children’s active use of technology in making decisions, technology resources in writing, drawing, and logical thinking programs to solve problems and illustrate ideas (Couse, 2010). However, they have not proven to be physically benefited for kids. Tablets are addictive to children and they might cause multiple illnesses. Tables should be placed under more strict controls and regulations before they are available for children.

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