With new smart phones and computer tablets popping up quicker than villains in a video game, books are disappearing faster than an ice cream cone on a highway in the summer. While that may be good news for Apple, Samsung and software engineers, and bad news for the recently closed Borders bookstores, it’s especially harmful for most children under age 5.

As more apps target toddlers and even infants, more children will become exposed to electronic learning devices. Marketed as an educational tool, many of these computers are glorified baby sitters. A child using an iPad on an airplane or at a restaurant is not playing for educational value. Rather, it’s the parents attempt to make them behave. It is much easier to hand a bored child a computerized game than to engage in activities together.

iPads and handhelds may be fun, but they can be all-consuming. When a child reads something on a computer screen, there’s no interaction. Books require the attention of another person who engages a young reader by asking questions: Where is the dog? What do you think will happen next? How does the girl feel? Computers are designed for solo use, making it much harder for parents to engage in discussion. Interaction becomes difficult when a child’s eyes are glued to the screen.

According to Zero to Three, a nonprofit organization for infants and toddlers, children who are read to and engaged in verbal interaction show more advanced linguistic skills. Because these are critical brain-building years, reading to a child is of utmost importance. The beginning years of a child’s life are the most receptive and crucial time for touch, music, and parental contact. 

Children learn in a variety of ways: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Fine motor skills are developed by turning the pages of books, putting stickers on paper, and coloring with a crayon. iPads typically involve visual learning, and occasionally some auditory education. Kinesthetic learning is lacking. 

In a recent Scientific American Mind article, researchers discovered that “hands-on explorations has also contributed to four critical thinking skills essential to learning: making distinctions, recognizing relationships, organizing systems, and taking multiple perspectives.” This higher level thinking begins with touch.

Try as they might, apps cannot replace a three-dimensional book. Children, especially young ones, need to touch and feel objects. Why do babies constantly put things in their mouths? They learn by exploring. Toddlers discover the same through hands-on experiences. Through touch information is learned and retained. A child who can feel the texture of a rabbit, smell the scent of strawberries, or lift a flap is learning practical skills as well as developing symbolic thinking that will help with language and mathematics. 

Another concern with hand-held electronic devices is the EMF (ElectroMagnetic Field). Research now links cell phone radiation with brain tumors. WiFi, computers, e-readers, iPads all produce significant levels of EMFs. For children with developing brains and thinner skulls the susceptibility becomes even greater. Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany, New York, believes up to 35% of childhood cancers are caused by exposure to EMF’s. Considering that cancer is the number one cause of death in children, the safety of exposing young children to more radiation should be considered.

Technology, like chocolate, is fine in small doses. Substituting computer apps for human interaction is a recipe for disaster. Parents should enjoy those first five years with traditional activities. There will be plenty of time for children to explore the high-tech world later, when it is developmentally appropriate. Establishing good reading habits and conversation skills while children are young is a gift that will last a lifetime.

Dawn Wynne is an elementary school teacher based in Los Angeles. She just published her first book, I Remember When … More information can be found at www.dawnwynne.com.